Lost in the Grey
by SilverRain4
Summary: Set post FN, MA. As the transgenic's situation becomes more precarious, Max and Alec realize that they may have to sacrifice their personal lives for the greater good.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own them, you think I would be working my rear off, and going to college if I did?  
  
You wake up, you open your eyes, and you start living in the world again. How many days do you start like that? A hundred, a thousand? It doesn't really matter how your day will go, whether you will even remember said day five years from now. It doesn't matter, you might inherit a million dollars, or lose your sanity, or find true love. The funny thing though, is that in that first thirty seconds of waking, you don't know which way things will go, the time just stretches into an infinity of possibilities. If I had known that today was the day that I would lose myself, I would have found a better use for that thirty seconds.  
  
"Alec, my man, you look like hell." Sketchy's voice rasped against my supremely sensitive hearing; and made my poor pounding head droop a few inches further towards the floor. I did my best to put on a devil-may- care smile, and swung my eyes up to face him. "Ya know buddy, so many lovely ladies, so little time." A smirk completed the deal, and I knew that the explanation would satisfy him. Sure, telling my friend that I had spent the night rescuing a pair of badly beaten and frightened x-6's from certain death at the hands of White would have made me sound just as manly; but, I thought with a sigh, that was precisely the reason that Clark Kent had gone around looking like a first rate geek.  
  
Huh, maybe that was where Logan got it. Perhaps he had started out life, as a cool, debonair ladies man. Then devastated by losing some blond babe love of his life, he had decided to save the world, and had therefore adopted a Geek by Day persona. This led me to the disturbing thought, that I was cool and debonair, and might someday be an amazing polyester-clad hacker.  
  
"Crack." In my unfortunate daydreaming, I had managed to walk smack into the middle of the lockers.  
  
"God-Damnit Alec." Ah, of course, to make my day even more extra special, it would have to have been the locker next to Max's.  
  
"Well I'm humbly sorry, oh my supreme high leader," I lowered my head to her ear, and pitched my voice so that only she could hear it, "but, as you may recall I was a teeny, tiny bit busy last night, and a few of us actually DO need to sleep." She actually had the grace to look slightly chagrined at this. She hid the expression with her usual speed and turned back to Original Cindy.  
  
"I don't know how much longer we can keep this up OC." She looked grim, and I wanted desperately to smooth the tired creases from between her brows. "We've rescued eight of our kind from White this week alone, and god only knows how many we haven't managed to get to in time." "Drastic measures are in order, but I'll be damned if I know what to do about it."  
  
I hold back a sigh of relief. Much as I have wanted to deny it, twenty years of training has been nagging at me, telling me that our measures against White are far from being enough. For every transgenic that we rescue, ten more may be killed on the streets. Perhaps it is fear that holds myself and especially Max, back. To fight back fully, we run a high risk of exposure. With exposure comes the loss of everything that we have worked so hard to keep, normal jobs and friends. Even the ability to hang out at Crash, and walk down the street. However, I know better than to think that Max would ever leave her family in danger, just to keep her own comforts; and surprisingly, I find that I am not unwillingly to throw it all into the fray if it means making things safe for my kind. I surprise myself further by speaking up, risking the all too likely of finding Maxes elbow planted on my nose.  
  
"We knew it would come to this, exposing ourselves and fighting it out in public view." "White has too many soldiers, and too many allies to fight in secret." "The only question is, how long until we are forced out into the open?" It was a foolish comment for me to make. Not that I didn't have a valid point, but such a statement obviously offended the basest principles of Murphy's law, and I found myself desperately seeking out a piece of wood to knock on.  
  
It was then that it happened. We felt it, rather than saw it. The tense quivering of screams out on the streets, and the reverberating of gunfire. My last coherent thought, as a stray shattered the tired oak bench beside my thigh, was that the wood seemed to have found me instead. 


	2. Shiver and Whirl

Disclaimer: I don't own them, you think I would be working my rear off, and going to college if I did? Thank you so much for the reviews! Group Hug and all that. I am so sorry about the formatting of the first chapter. I am a bit new to this; but hopefully I am getting the hang of it. As far as a specific pairing, I have not made a decision yet; however, I am thinking that it will be M/A. On the other hand, I may not have any pairings at all in this story. I began this story mainly because a psychology class gave me an interesting idea. On a brief side note, for the purposes of this story, Biggs is still alive. So sit back, pull out the popcorn, and don't fear to tell me if it stinks. (Okay, if it does stink please say it nicely, I am a sensitive soul).  
  
The shiver runs up your spine, starting slowly at the bottom, and then speeding dizzyingly till it reaches your head. You jerk sharply, the motion shakes you out of your reverie, and your stare turns forward. Why? A misfiring of neurons, an unanticipated sound or motion which startles you, or little black ants running over the ground that will someday be your final resting place? I don't want to lose all of this, but even more I know that the death must be ended, and if not me, then whom?  
  
Just five seconds ago, Alec's little speech had sent a thrill up my spine. It made me want to crack him right in the nose, wipe that god damned know-it- all expression right off his smug little face. Although thinking back on it, his face hadn't really looked all that smug. Why did he have to make those little provocative, nevertheless unhelpful and depressing statements?  
  
But of course, the asshole would have to be right; so immediately and disastrously right. It took exactly five seconds for these thoughts to fly through my brain, even in moments of deep duress my genetically engineered internal clock kept perfect time.  
  
We moved in a whirlwind of speed, Alec, CeCe, Biggs, and me, moves exactly matched. No need to fear exposure at a moment such as this, every normal in Jam Pony was flinging themselves in the ninety different directions that they hoped would lead them to safety. The four of us tore out of the back door unnoticed and unscathed.  
  
It was torture, an eternity, even sprinting towards the ensuing battle at high speed, I felt that I wouldn't make it their fast enough. Then suddenly, it all stopped, sound, motion, all of it. My legs felt gelatinous for a moment, and Alec's hands steadied my arm with a grip like a vice. Surrounded by thirty members of the Seattle SWAT team, Joshua stood tall and proud, and at second glance, he was not alone. I easily picked out the distinctive faces of Mole and Dix, and for some ungodly reason the two of them seemed to be supporting a pregnant girl and a little boy.  
  
"We need a plan." My voice is steady, it has to be, Alec is the, rush in now and damn the consequences later, kind of guy and that is my Joshua out there.  
  
"Take me hostage." It was an insane statement, leave it to Alec to say such a thing.  
  
"Alec is right Max, you take him, and I'll take Biggs. Obviously, White and his gang aren't here yet. To give the devil his due, he would never let a situation become this out of hand, or this public." An irritated retort forms on my lips, but CeCe heads me off again. "It's a basic tactic. Also, since I know that you are going to ask, the smaller person takes the larger person hostage. That way, when you hold the person in front of you, they cover your body more securely."  
  
"Max, I know how you seriously dislike guns and all that, but you might consider overcoming your girlish qualms for a few moments. The cops seem to be getting itchy trigger fingers, and I am rather attached to Big Fella too." Ah, I see the familiar gleam in his green eyes, and I know that he won't let me down, "Besides, you'd get to hold me real close."  
  
I smack him, it is the only possible dignified response. Then in a fluid motion that would do Manticore proud, I reach behind Alec's back and pull the glock that will too predictably concealed in his waistband. His face falls, as my lips curve into a smile. Let the ass think that he's becoming predictable, I had really seen him pull the gun out of his locker before we began our mad little dash; but then, there really wasn't any need for him to know that.  
  
In some deranged parody of an old Western movie, I fire Alec's gun in the air, then CeCe and I march our prisoners out into the square.  
  
I take a childish moment of joy in the look of panic and confusion in the faces of the SWAT team. So few pleasures in life are as poignant as petty revenge. "Okay fellas, no sudden moves or Bob and Charlie here get it. We'll keep it simple, you let me and mine walk into that nice old, abandoned factory and everyone turns out happy."  
  
The brightest looking of the police nods his head, in rapt and silent communication with his earphones. Then slowly he motions Joshua and the rest to back towards me. I breathe my first true breath since the first bullet flew.  
  
Of course, things couldn't go smoothly for me. This is my life, there always has to be a cute little twist. It seems that Agent White's timing was as picture perfect as mine was not. 


	3. Southern Fried Comfort Food

Disclaimer: I don't own them, you think I would be working my rear off, and going to college if I did? Sorry that it took me so long to update. I went home for the Holidays. Yes I do have a computer at home, but there were endless amounts of shopping, shopping, and eating. I'm sure you'd rather read the story (at least I hope that you'd rather), so without further delays.  
  
Do you believe in karma, kismet, a blue lady? Have you seen a dead innocent? A little child that can't have done anything, lying in a pool of blood. How can some people have luck. NO, not just some people, really awful people. If there were a blue lady, how could she let things happen to people deserving of better. God knows that I have been a bad person, but our cause is just. It has to be, because the alternative, that we are soulless animals. We aren't. Karma and the Blue Lady must have a reason, and until we find an outline of the Grand Plan, we will survive.  
  
Now I don't consider myself to be an unreasonable sort of man. After spending the first twenty years of my life in hell, I would be more than happy to sit in obscurity watching tv and eating Doritos. I am also not an unintellingent man, I know that I'll never have that kind of luck. Personally, I think that Maxie is the problem. Only her luck could be this spectacularly bad. It isn't my luck, It is not MY luck, and only I the Blue Lady knows why I make her luck, my luck. What is it with Max? She was obviously Hitler in a past life. Little pencil mustache, yeah I can see it.  
  
"HwaccH" My 'kidnapper' is choking me in her anxiety. "Maxie, kindly remove your elbow from my neck." She drops my neck, if I didn't know better, I would say that she looked bewildered. Now I'm worried, she should be glaring at me.  
  
"Oh god, oh god." CeCe looks ready to puke. The idea is not unattractive at the moment. A distance of two hundred twenty feet still separates us from Joshua and company. White is advancing slowly but purposefully towards them and they seem frozen by indecision.  
  
I raise an eyebrow, "Ideas?" What we need is a miracle. I can infer from White's smug look of triumph, that the convenient factory behind us is salted with familiars by now. Somehow, we need to find a safe place to regroup. Unfortunately, even if such a place existed, we couldn't very well scream it out to Joshua because White was well within auditory range.  
  
Maybe the Blue Lady hadn't forsaken us after all. In a freakish moment of telepathy, Max and I stared at each other and began to laugh. All we needed know was a distraction to deflect White.  
  
I smiled at Max. "Gun, chickens," I nodded at the butchers shop conveniently placed behind White.  
  
She smiled back and reached into her pocket, then gestured towards the now empty gasoline lines "lighter."  
  
I had never eaten fried chicken before. To be honest I had always imagined that it smelled rather better; but then they usually pluck the feathers off before they cook it, don't they? It took less than forty seconds.  
  
TEN SECONDS: I shot the padlock off the chicken coop, while at the same time Max grabbed up a five gallon can of gasoline.  
  
TWENTY SECONDS: Max threw the can at the wall above the unfortunate livestock, shattering the metal and spilling the contents of the can. I yanked off one of my socks, stuffed a large rock into it, and dipped into a second can of gas.  
  
THIRTY SECONDS: Max lit my makeshift fire-bomb ablaze, and I flung it at the same wall.  
  
FORTY SECONDS: I fired a warning across Whites left ear. Max yelled out "Divide and meet us at work."  
  
I had been combat trained, I had seen wars, I had grown up in a kill or be killed hell; and still I had never been more frightened than I was now. Max collapsed into my arms with laughter, and silently we shook. Agent Ames White and fifteen of his elite familiars, not to mention dozens of Seattle policeman, were now covered in flaming chicken feathers.  
  
CeCe and Biggs wordlessly yank us to our feet, and for the second time today I find myself running full out.  
  
It is over; we can't hide among the normals anymore. In the past we had had one small advantage, White didn't know where we worked. Joshua did. However, that one advantage had now been used.  
  
As one body, the nine of us burst through the doors of Jam Pony, the hounds of hell on our heels.  
  
It was over, no more hiding, and no more lying to the world.  
  
May the Blue Lady save us all.  
  
I hope you enjoyed, I love your reviews. Oxygen to a writers lungs. The next chapter will introduce the main plot line. 


	4. In a towel and heels

I'm twenty years old, and the way I see it, the biggest moments of your life are divided into two categories. That first time you move away from home and get a taste of control, or the time you get married to the love of your life and irrevocably intertwine your fates; these times we plan for years ahead of time. From the time you are ten, and old enough to totter around in borrowed high heels with a towel for a veil.  
  
Then there are accidents, and incidents. Times when your heart feels beats out of your chest, and your stomach plummets to the floor. In either situation, you know that one era of your life has ended, and a new one has begun. I'm twenty years old. I've never had a choice about the changes in my life; escaping, being captured, and escaping again, are things that you can't plan for.  
  
Still, I remember when I was twelve; I once had this white towel, and a bunch of daisies.  
  
  
  
Nothing could ever be the same; we were out, no more hiding in shadows. Skulking doesn't befit a soldier anyway.  
  
My stomach burned and churned, but at that moment I would have given anything for a camera. The looks on my co-workers faces ranged from catatonic shock, to an expression of fear so poignant that I considered checking its bearer for the marks of certain embarrassing bodily functions.  
  
"So, I'm sure you're all wondering why we smell like chicken." Funny, for once Alec was speaking, and I didn't have the urge to hit him.  
  
"I knew it, hah, hahhah. Didn't I tell all of you that Missy Miss was a freak?" It is nice to know that even in moments of severe crisis, you can count on your asshole boss to say something witty. "And know the dog pound is about to come knocking on the door to make a few pick ups." Alec snarled noiselessly at Normal, and his next comment died on his lips. I wonder just how far Golden Boy will fall in his graces.  
  
The nine of us glance at one another. It isn't over yet, we were undoubtedly followed. I know now what has to be done. They'll never just let us walk out the back entrance; but, I've just been handed twenty or so very convenient hostages in the form of my co-workers.  
  
"Oh god." The pregnant X-5 did not look happy.  
  
"Oh god." I follow Alec's horrified eyes to the floor. Ah, perfect, her water just broke.  
  
I take a deep breath before I speak; I doubt that she planned to go into labor during the middle of a hostage crisis.  
  
"Cindy." My friend walks over at my call. "I need you to sit with her. I think that her strength and training should make this easier."  
  
"It gonna be okay boo." I nod into her sympathetic brown eyes, and with the help of the little boy, she assists the pregnant woman to a seat in the corner.  
  
I sign to Dix and CeCe, who nod and take up sentry position by the windows.  
  
I don't need to explain my feeble plan to the others. Alec and Biggs are trained soldiers, Mole is the single most combative creature I have ever met, and beneath the puppy-dog façade, Joshua was no fool.  
  
The ethical considerations of using people I had once considered friends, as human shields, had been obliterated by direness of our situation. I could tell by the looks on my comrade's faces, that they had reached the same conclusion.  
  
"I'd only like to point out one little flaw." Mole's face looked deadly serious. "The police negotiate with kidnappers and the like. White isn't a policeman, not by a long-shot, and he might just try to shoot through any innocent bystanders."  
  
Damn him, the lizard-man had an extremely damning point. Fortunately, I was saved from further fretting by the insistent ringing of the office phone.  
  
I nodded stiffly at Normal, and resisted the tempting urge to say "bip, bip."  
  
"It would appear to be for you Missy Miss. I simply glare at him, and his sarcastic smile turns upside down. He slides the receiver down the counter towards me, and I catch it in my left hand.  
  
"My name is Detective Clemente of the Seattle PD, to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" I stifle a sigh of relief. If the cops are still in the game, White can't start arbitrarily shooting down civilians.  
  
"Call me 452." I don't know why I don't give him my name. It shouldn't matter anymore, but somehow I want to keep just one small piece of what I had. Something that belonged to the post-escape, pre-public freak era of my life.  
  
"Nice name. Okay to be straight with you, our highest priority is the freedom of the employees in that building. As a sign of mutual trust, we would deeply appreciate it if you released those people. I'm sure that you wouldn't want this to turn into a hostage situation."  
  
Funny, just a few hours ago, I would have counted as one of that number. I manage to inject a bit of my sneer into my voice as I speak. "Sure Detective, and then I'm sure that you'll just let my friends and I walk out the door and go on our way. I'm sure you know what we are by now. You also know that we weren't made to be stupid."  
  
"I'm afraid you have me there, uh, 452. However, I can assure you that your people will only be taken into protective custody. None of you will be injured if this ends right now."  
  
"Really Detective, because I think there might be a certain Agent White out there who would disagree with that statement. Besides, protective custody generally involves a cell. Personally, I think that I can speak for all of my people when I say that none of us would appreciate being in a cage again."  
  
"Well then 452, it seems that we negotiate. I'm sure your intentions are peaceful; but, I can't risk those employees ending up like your chickens."  
  
"I need to confer with my compatriots, give me three minutes Detective Clemente."  
  
I turn to the others, but they direct my attention to the corner. There may just be hope for us yet. Never in my whole life would I have expected to see Normal helping to deliver a transgenic baby.  
  
"Gem says her baby is almost ready to be born." I smile back up at Joshua, and pat him on the arm.  
  
"We'll get her and her baby out of this Big-fella, don't worry." Wow, way to give encouragement Alec. Who knew he had it in him.  
  
Shit, I needed to focus. "Okay guys, this is the way we stand. It looks like White hasn't managed to pull authority yet, and the guy in charge of the police is willing to negotiate."  
  
Restrained smiles meet my pronouncement.  
  
"We use them as bargaining chips, demand safe transport to Terminal City." As he spoke, Mole made a gesture encompassing my co-workers.  
  
The others nod in agreement. Well, it's a plan. Not a brilliant one perhaps, but we seemed to be running out of options.  
  
This time, I didn't jump when the phone rang. "Okay Detective Clemente, we'll keep this simple. You want the hostages, and all that I want in return is a van. It will be delivered to the back entrance of the building in one half hour. The area will be cleared of all police. Keys will be left in the ignition, and it will have a full tank of gas. No one. I repeat, No One, is to follow us, or they will be terminated. I assure you that my people are well trained in picking up both tails and tracking devices."  
  
I pause for effect. "In return, as a show of good-will, you will receive three-quarters of the hostages when you produce the van. The other quarter will be returned to you when we reach our destination, with my assurance that they will not be harmed."  
  
After a long moment of silence, Detective Clemente cleared his throat and spoke. "Well 452, you seem to have put a lot of thought into this. Of course I don't have absolute authority in this situation. However, I think that I can guarantee that we will meet your demands. The van will be turned over to you in exactly a half an hour."  
  
"Oh, and Detective, I've always preferred green vans." He grunts in return sounding almost amused.  
  
We'd won this round. My silent self-congratulations are abruptly ended by a tap on my shoulder. Alec motioned me towards the corner where Gem sat.  
  
Maybe there is hope for us after all. Never in my life would I expect to see a tired looking Gem surrounded by a suspiciously teary eyed Normal and a maternal looking Original Cindy holding a squalling little baby.  
  
"The SWAT team boys are getting restless; I think they can here that little tyke howling." CeCe, by the window, looks worried. Unconsciously, though my feet pull me towards the tiny child.  
  
"You can hold her if you like, Max." I look in shock at the new mother. Before I can speak Cindy has laid the child in my arms. She smiles serenely as the uncertainty in my posture begins to fade.  
  
Holding the baby felt kind of right, but who was I kidding I didn't have the tiniest shred of maternal instinct. Still I couldn't help but smile at the way the kid quieted down once she was laid in my arms.  
  
"Max, Max come quick." I hand the baby back to OC and rush to CeCe's side. My blood freezes as I behold White arguing with the Detective I'd been talking to earlier.  
  
Maybe it would still work out; my enhanced hearing had picked up the roar of a van engine being parked behind the building. If we could just reach its safety first.  
  
No, definitely not good. The detective threw up his hands at White, then took a single menacing step forward. In a second, White's hands were at his throat.  
  
Then, suddenly my world burst into stars as I collapsed to the floor.  
  
I was warm, and arms were cradling my descent towards the floor. What was that banging sound? Fireworks, I thought laughingly. Fireworks set off in honor of my brilliant negotiating skills. Strong arms cradled me, and I could here someone calling my name.  
  
"Max. Please Maxie look at me. I think it missed any internal organs. She should be fine as long as we can get her out of here and stop the bleeding." My eyes blurrily focused on the face above me. Hehe Alec was kind of handsome when he looked all worried.  
  
Why should he be worried, I was fine. My stomach just hurt a bit. Maybe a little stomach ache.  
  
As I returned to consciousness, the pain of the little stomach ache increased a hundred fold. My eyes were drawn inevitably downwards toward the sticky wetness at my fingers.  
  
So this is what it felt like to be shot in the stomach. A shame really. If the bullet had found Zach's heart instead, would Alec have given up his? I shook my head and tried to rise.  
  
Arms restrained me on all sides. I subsided rather weakly back into the circle of Alec's arms.  
  
"Shit, guys you need to see this." What else could have happened? Dix on lookout, sounded a few seconds away from an aneurism. "When White grabbed the detective, some of the policeman fired. Well they were subdued by some rather aggressively dressed large people. I'm just guessing that the nasty looking people aren't tourists."  
  
I felt Alec slowly lowering me into Cindy's embrace, and I struggled to hear as he turned to CeCe, Biggs, and Mole. "With Clemente out of the way, there won't be anything to stop White. I'm guessing that there are about fifteen familiars out there. You know that strategically, we can't beat them. Not with those kinds of odds. Now if I were too."  
  
"No." Biggs and CeCe spoke simultaneously cutting him off.  
  
"I think that it may be our only option. I'm not thrilled about the idea, but a soldier does what they have to."  
  
Biggs' voice shook with restrained anger "If you do this, what even makes you think that you could come back from it. Could you take the possibility of being stuck in that state for the rest of your life? I won't let you do it. I'd do it myself rather than let you do it."  
  
"Look, I'm the logical choice. I had the highest ratings in mental control. I've successfully come out of lighter states of mental repression. And basically we don't have any other choice. Now Biggs, will you anchor me or not?"  
  
Biggs nodded, expression tight. The two men stared at each other in silence.  
  
"Well then," Alec gave a trademark smirk, "let's do it." 


	5. To Her Alone

Okay, I know the end of the last chapter was a bit confusing. The first paragraph of this chapter (and they're always so esoteric aren't they?) will not explain it. However, never fear, if my muse is kind, all will become clear as things progress. Any Irishwomen in the audience may recognize the upcoming reference. In case anyone is wondering, I have a beautiful Claddagh that my da gave me when I was littler. I hope that you enjoy. Happy New Years to All. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
Everyone has a purpose. When I was ten, my purpose was to obey. When I was fifteen, I existed to kill. When I was nineteen, I lost my purpose in the blood of my love. I found IT again when I was twenty. I lived to be Max's shadow. To annoy, to offend, to save, and to protect.  
  
Two hours ago, I doubted my existence. I thought to myself. Self I thought, if there is such a thing as a higher being, or fate, then I had to be a mistake. Most people wouldn't be able to rationalize such a decision, but then I'm not like most people. I was created in a test tube. My existence flies in the face of fate, and tells it to kiss its ass.  
  
Twenty seconds ago, I found my purpose again. We weren't all meant to make a difference. We weren't all meant to save the world, and some of us weren't meant to rule our lives. I know now what I need to do. I am the savior of our savior; the willing sacrifice; the soldier born. My heart is not pure, my hands covered in the blood of innocent life, my head beyond saving. Nevertheless, tainted as they are, they will belong to her and her alone.  
  
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We stood staring at one another. Not a muscle twitched, we might have been twin statues of the Adonis. I wasn't worried. Biggs would yield to my decision as he had done for ten years. At last he nods to me.  
  
"If we're going to do this Alec, it has to be soon. Those assholes outside won't wait forever." He sighs and turns his back to me.  
  
"I don't understand boo, what's so damn awful that it's got all you soldier boy's panties in a twist?" Cindy turns confused chocolate eyes on me. I sigh wearily. I don't really have enough time to explain it; but Sketchy, and Normal, and a number of my old co-workers are now regarding me with expressions of intense interest. In a few minutes, I will turn into the perfect Manticore soldier, a creature without compunction or remorse. If I don't enlighten them as to what's going on, it will do more public relations damage than all of Whites bullshit propaganda.  
  
Alec's Story.  
  
"In the year 2004, a Manticore researcher named James Bayhoc found a way to combine his passion for the martial arts with his studies into intellectual suppression.  
  
Over the next ten years, he perfected a series of twelve karate routines known as kattas which he combined with rigorous mental programming. The results became one of Manticore's greatest, non-animate inventions. From an early age, their genetically spliced soldiers would be trained and programmed to respond to a specific series of movements and vocal commands. While they performed the series, they would be mentally suppressing certain aspects of their personalities and higher brain functions.  
  
The results varied according to the levels of complexity of the maneuver. They ranged from the katta of one, which produced a state of tight emotional control and higher focus; to the katta of twelve.  
  
Katta of twelve created the most impressive results. A soldier under its influence felt no pain, showed no fear, responded perfectly to orders, and still maintained the ability to strategize and develop complex battle tactics.  
  
Unfortunately, there were side-effects; the soldier lost that innately human quality which may considered the spark of life. Also, unlike the first eleven kattas, the twelfth was never successfully reversed by Manticore's doctors. The state of repression was simply too deep, the human subconscious buried beyond reach."  
  
"So what, you go all vacant super-soldier?" How could you even consider doing this boy?"  
  
"Look here Mister, much as it pains me to admit it, I have to agree with Missy Miss here. It sounds far too dangerous." Huh, Cindy and Normal as a tag team, today is just freaking full of surprises.  
  
"Aaalec." Until this moment, I had managed to relegate my thoughts of the wounded Max, to the back of my head. She had certainly heard my explanation, even in her present incapacitation.  
  
"Cindy, could you give us a moment?"  
  
"Just a moment though Alec, we need to hurry." I nod at Biggs, and kneel down feeling like a medieval champion resting beside my lady.  
  
"You can't do it." Her bloodshot eyes sparkle with anger and something that looks surprisingly like concern. "Don't be a jerk, I am in no position to bail your ass out of trouble again." That was my Max. We could have been standing by the gates of heaven or the brink of hell and her attitude wouldn't change an inch.  
  
"No Maxie. Just as you gave me no choice in my freedom, I will give you no choice about yours. You can't be caged again. You see, you weren't meant for it."  
  
"Oh and I suppose that you."  
  
"Yes Maxie, I was. For these few months of freedom, I owe you more than you can imagine; but I know now what I have to do. I was meant to be a soldier, we can't all have the good life. Know this, that whatever happens to me, you have meant more to me than anything else on this earth. Goodbye Maxie."  
  
"Damn it Alec No," her voice quakes with emotion or blood loss. "I won't let you give it up." I try to give her one last smirk, but it is more wistful than arrogant. Turning my back on her arguments, I walk towards my future. 


	6. The Twelve

Phewww, this was not an easy chapter to write, the version before you is the third one that I wrote. Anyhow, to the questions. I don't want to give anything away, but I am a hopeless romantic (hint, happily ever after ending may be in the works). Also, to Sorrow Reminisce, I would love to post my fic on your site. Sorry to keep you all waiting so long, I have been so short on time that I finally resorted to penning this on a notepad, while riding on the El train (it's not easy, I personally don't recommend it). So without further ado.  
  
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It's always the little things that stick in your head. Not the important memories, but the silly irritating details. They say it all flashes before your eyes, but then it isn't really the absolute end is it? I'm like the actor who has finished his lines, but still has to stand on stage watching the action. I'm not bitter about it. They say that the mark of a true actor is the one in the small role who does not distract from the action, but fills out his role quietly, and to the best of his ability. It's her show now. My people will live out the grand drama of a nation gaining independence, or of a population slaughtered. Throughout it all I will watch through the eyes that will no longer dance with my laughter. Hoping the entire time that my purpose is not ended. Hoping that I have one line more to speak.  
  
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"Clear your head."  
  
"That shouldn't be hard."  
  
"Shut-up ass."  
  
"Focus on the sound of my voice." Biggs begins to tap his foot at exacting five second intervals. I match my breathing to his beat.  
  
"One." I picture myself walking down a long narrow corridor. Funny that I had never noticed, but the way I imagined the interior of my mind bore a remarkable resemblance to Manticore. Pale grey walls surround me, not claustrophobically, but with an aura of strength and structure. My mind's eye shuts as I take another deep breath. When my subconscious opens its eyes again, the hallway is lined with twelve plain doors.  
  
My hand pauses on the knob of the first one. All the while I can sense my body tensing in preparation for battle; but that world is fading against these grey walls.  
  
Don't turn back. Creaking slightly, the first of the doors gives behind my push, and I enter a world of angles and reds. A faceless man stares back at me from the center of the room. Funny really that I had never known his name. He had simply been The Target; a criminal, a dirty thief, and an interloper into my world of order. He didn't seem so tall anymore. When I had killed him the first time, at the age of seven, he had seemed far larger.  
  
Hardly winded, I towered over my fallen enemy. Wiping the blood that didn't exist onto my pants, I walked to the next level.  
  
"Two." So the levels progressed from orange to yellow, to green, blue, and indigo. From my very first drill sergeant, to the old Manticore guard that killed 472, to my first assassination target, the head doctor in psy-ops, and finally Madame Renfro. Thus went the first six levels of my mind, representing the first half of my life.  
  
"Seven." Violet was for Rachel, something vibrant and glowing. Our fight was soft and slow. It ended when I pinned her, fingers seeking the delicate nerves of her neck till her head drooped in false sleep.  
  
"Eight." Now the room burst form single flaring colors into the cacophony of a rainbow. I faced Cindy and Sketchy, both at once. All the colors and varieties of human life.'  
  
"Nine." Chased the rainbow, until it turned a steady brown for Biggs. My oldest friend sticking beside me, having the solidity of the earth beneath my feet.  
  
"Ten." I knew what would come next; my mind could sometimes display a stunning lack of originality. Best friend to deadly enemy. Among a backdrop of blinding white, I faced the colors namesake. Insubstantiality dulled my pain; that and the knowledge that here in my subconscious, the structured maneuvers of the katta would inevitably lead me to victory.  
  
"Eleven." The sudden switch to black dizzied me. My black cat, my dark angel. If my fight against Rachel had been slow and gentle, this was the antithesis. Pale heads and hands blurred like chalk across a black slate. We ended vice-gripped in each others arms. I never could beat her.  
  
"Twelve." Twelve snaked across blackness, emptying it like the heaving of an ill stomach, becoming a void with neither sight nor sound. The figure in my arms shifted, and I needed neither sense to know my final opponent. My shadow, the enigma my mind had created to channel the predator and the deadly beast. I smiled ruefully, this opponent would not be tied as Maxie had been. It was the soldier, I was the man; and though I had let bits of it out before, now it was clamoring for control. Its hold on me tightened, the void sucking the air from my lungs.  
  
It faded, but I felt no relief as the grey walls took shape around me, an endless sea of loss.  
  
"State your designation." The voice of the man who had been my friend continued on. I tried to speak but was too tired. Better to let the beast speak, better to give him everything. The tiredness was too much for me; I curled my body up on the cold grey floor, and surrendered. 


	7. The Hardest Thing

The last time. The last moment. Not for me though. Because after all of this, I'll still have to continue on. God, how do I breathe again. My throat burns. My chest aches. Not from metal, from him. What do you do, or say, How do you pull yourself up from the floor. It's the hardest thing. The hardest thing to be left behind.  
  
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I watched him fight from the floor. His body the perfect creation, even when fighting against opponents I couldn't see. I dropped my head back to the floor.  
  
We'd left, my siblings and I, before we had learned this rite. Nerves jangled themselves, up and down my spine. It was uncertainty that made me shake. What would happen when he reached twelve? Would he disappear in a ring of light, grow ten feet tall like pop-eye on spinach?  
  
I wanted to shake Biggs, slap him, anything to halt the death knell of his counting; but just like this whole damn situation, the end was upon us like lightening.  
  
"Twelve, state your designation." The world exploded in light. Ah I thought dumbly, so he did disappear in lights.  
  
I felt fragments of plaster and prickles of shattered glass dust the skin of my legs. Saw Cindy's eyes inches from my own, as she rose from where she had crouched to cover my body with her own.  
  
"You three, fan out and cover the front, I'll take point behind you. Let one through the line every forty five seconds, and I will dispatch them in a concentrated flow. Watch each other for signs of trouble; the x-6 is in the middle so I can keep a closer eye on him. You three, guard over the wounded and the baby. Also, one of you try to patch that girl up."  
  
His voice was cold. Not with the chill of death as Ben's had been. This voice was just as likely to kill, but would not waste the time to make it unnecessarily painful.  
  
Cindy jostled my elbow slightly as she bent to look at my wound. "It looks like a clean shot through. Seems to've stopped bleed'n. I let you sit up, if you a good boo and take it slow." I nod slowly, and she moves to support me as she shifts my back against a wall.  
  
"Here they come. The fifteen that White had had with him before, and six that must have been in the factory." Cece sounds as frightened as I feel.  
  
I can see only the back of Alec's head and a sliver of his tanned face from where I am sitting. He nods once as he processes this new information, but the strict posture of his body veers not an inch.  
  
Like a tidal wave they are on us. They really weren't attractive. Maybe that was it, the source of the potency of their fury. I had never seen a transgenic that wasn't supermodel material. Okay that wasn't strictly true, better to say that I had never seen an "X" that wasn't gorgeous. Really all this time, White had been self-conscious of his wrinkles and lack of physical charm.  
  
I really had concentration problems. Anything to prevent myself from focusing on the carnage that had to be taking place in front of me.  
  
"Look Boo, its working." Cindy shook me out of my internal reverie. Half afraid, my head inches up til I can see again.  
  
A pile of six familiars lay behind Alec. They were shortly joined by a seventh of their kind, unconscious or maybe dead. Nineteen more beasts, then the cherry on top.  
  
Spin kick, uppercut to the head. The front line of defenders was doing admirably well. Holding their own for the few minutes until they could shove their opponent back for Alec to dispatch.  
  
The pile of familiars had more than doubled to fifteen, when disaster struck. One of the familiars in the pile behind Alec, a particularly beefy looking female, who had only been pretending unconsciousness. In his distraction, she slid up behind him.  
  
I watch in sick horror as she kicks straight across at his arm, and shudder as I hear bone crunch.  
  
His left foot swings out, and her beefy blond head snaps up as it meets with his toes. It was somehow wrong though; her neck lay at an unnatural angle as she slumped to the ground. She wouldn't be bothering Alec or any of my kind again.  
  
Still, we're sunk now. Our ace in the hole is incapacitated, his arm has to be broken.  
  
In morbid fascination, I watch as he clubs the next opponent with the same injured appendage. Not even a token wince escapes his lips. It is as though he is so far removed from feeling, that not even such excruciating pain can touch him.  
  
I should be cheering, we haven't lost now. I want to scream, and cry tears of blood. He is gone, I know now that he has to be. Even a trained transgenic couldn't take that kind of pain and stay on his feet.  
  
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one. Twenty one bodies sprawl across the once painfully neat floor of Jam Pony Messenger service.  
  
We all waited in a veritable hush, we knew what was coming.  
  
494 nodded to Biggs, CeCe, and the boy. Attempting to look unhurried, they backed towards the walls forming a semicircle around their champion.  
  
They stood face to face, beast to beast. White's inhuman snarl of rage fazed Alec not at all.  
  
"So 494, it pathetically comes down to this. A filthy animal defending a pack of its little friends. You can't save them or your little bitch of a girlfriend you know. Their blood will flow over your hands."  
  
494 stared dispassionately back at him.  
  
"What know witty comeback. Come on asshole beg for their lives. I might just be a nice guy and satisfy myself with killing you and your little slut. The rest of them can just go in a cage."  
  
494 began to circle its prey, still the same blankly calculating look on its face.  
  
"What cat got your." The prey never finished, words died like a dry river on its tongue. Blood poured forth red from White's lips. He saw neither the glock that 494 had concealed behind his back, waiting for the perfect moment; nor the swift, blurred motion with which he aimed and fired it.  
  
The prey made a last, aborted pawing motion at the ragged whole through its throat before collapsing in a pile of blood and sinew on the floor. 


	8. Changing Places

Sorry that the last chapter was so quick, it was another toughey. This one seemed to come easier, so keep your fingers crossed for me. Unlike the others, it switches points of view a few times, I tried to make it pretty clear. Thank you all for your reviews, they give me warm fuzzies. Enjoy. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
"Thud." My head jolted painfully against the side of the van. Pain is good, it reminds me that I'm alive. I take a deep breath and regret it immediately, vomit and sweat-soaked fear permeate the enclosed metal space.  
  
After that shot rang out, we had stood an eternity in silence. Numbly, Joshua had lifted me in his arms and we had all marched to the van. None of the police, all having seen the fight, would dare to stop our progress.  
  
We rode in the same uncomfortable silence, Biggs driving us inexonerabley to the dump that would be our home.  
  
Two hours later, I lay freshly bathed, and dressed, my stomach swathed in bandages; in a makeshift infirmary.  
  
"It's all over the news, our fight that is. The witch hunt has become a god-damned war." I shiver at Mole's words and look at my people, standing faithfully around my bed.  
  
"They'll start flooding in now, every transgenic within a hundred mile radius will flock here to escape the lynch mobs."  
  
I shake my head at CeCe. "This is going to be a media circus too, not to mention the protestors, and probably the military setting up camp on our doorstep." They hit me verbally, all at once.  
  
"We need defenses."  
  
"We need supplies and places to live."  
  
"What we need is a goddamned leader."  
  
Mole and CeCe and Biggs are all looking at Me. I had expected it. You let the animals out of their cages so now you take care of them, seemed to be the most popular opinion. Power settled on my neck like a sinking-stone.  
  
"Aiight, this girl needs to rest, everybody out." I gave Cindy a look of pure gratitude. As they filed out, I caught Biggs' eye and he sat back down in the chair by my side.  
  
He forestalled my attempts at speech, putting up his hand. "There isn't anything for us to do about it Max."  
  
"I can't accept that."  
  
"Well your acceptance of it is irrelevant." His tone softens, and he leans forward.  
  
"Don't you think they tried Max? Manticore's best scientists and psych teams tried to reverse their brainwashing for years, but the highest level proved impossible to change."  
  
"But before, when Alec was trying to convince you to let him go through with it, he said that he was the best at mind control."  
  
"If anything that just makes it harder. He'll have done a top-notch job of burying himself."  
  
"What do we do now, then? We can't just leave him like he is."  
  
"He told me something last week. He said that the only thing that should matter to any of us was your safety." My head snapped up, horrified. I knew what he was suggesting. "Let him protect you Max. If you're as important to the future as we think, you could use a bodyguard."  
  
I didn't know if I could bear the thought of seeing someone I had. know so well day in and day out, a shell of person he had been. Not when he had had so much spirit.  
  
He saw the indecision in my eyes, he pounced. "Don't let his sacrifice have been useless." I know that he is right.  
  
"In the meantime, I would see what advice he, 494 has on stuff like security and provisions. He's real good at organization.  
  
I shudder at the thought. The way he organized the fight, and the smell of my worst enemy bleeding to death. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
I wake from my stupor to the blinding pain of bones breaking. I stagger to my feet, the grey of my surrounding disorienting me badly. My arm burns like fire, though at a cursory investigation, the limb is whole and undamaged.  
  
Scotch, or whiskey, or codeine, I need something desperately for the pain.  
  
Suddenly, I am choking. Fiery liquid burns my throat, and I swallow the gulp of liquid that has gotten into my mouth from some where.  
  
Looking around wildly, my bewilderment increases; I am alone, nothing but colorlessness stretching as far as my eyes can see.  
  
I slump back down to the floor and try to think rationally. What the hell was going on? Something clicked, and I laughed aloud a bit wildly. I wasn't corporeal really; I was just a personality, a soul, repressed in my body's subconscious.  
  
The subconscious controls dreaming. Up until this point, I had been a dreamer at the whim of higher thought processes; but I had taken control of my dreams in the past.  
  
Shutting my eyes, I took a few deep breathes and concentrated on the space between my outstretched hands. Moments later, I look down in triumph at the bottle of scotch in my hands. Squeezing my eyes shut again, I begin to ease the emptiness of my surroundings.  
  
A short time later, I am comfortable surrounded by the trimmings of a small apartment. For some reason, the only feat of which I am incapable, is changing the color of the walls. No amount of subconscious paint can alter the dull gray.  
  
Now if only I could find a way to see the happenings of the outside world. Even if I couldn't affect the workings of my body, there had to be a way to see what it saw and heard.  
  
I smiled inwardly as the thought hit me, and bent all of my will on the space in front of me. This would show Maxie, her always telling me how useless my television addiction was. I held my breath as I flicked on the screen. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
Lela slid from the shadows, into the dingy building that had housed Jam Pony. The foolish beasts hadn't ever seen her, a last familiar, blending in the shadows.  
  
Unlike her comrades, she was to wise to try her luck that day. She looked down angrily at the badly torn body of her husband. Though they had been legally married to others over the years, those had been weak humans. Lela and Ames had been true husband and wife, joined by Conclave ceremony.  
  
A light sound prevented her leaving. Bending quickly to the floor, her fingers closed tightly over his wrist. A cruelly triumphant smile curved up her lips, at the lightest strumming a very faint pulse.  
  
She had watched every block and punch of the fighting. Watched the pure beast that had dispatched her people, feeling almost a slight respect for it. Unlike the rest of its kind, it didn't try to deny what it was.  
  
She would enjoy hunting it. True prey for a hunter bred. 


	9. Unwelcome

I inhaled a single breathe of fresh, toxic air. My love needed me again, her hell was my heaven. I took the stairs to at a time, exoskeleton whirring lightly. Now was the time to become her knight in shining armor, the time that she would need a shoulder to cry on.  
  
His presence at Max's door pricked a small hole in the balloon of my happiness. No matter, I was sadly becoming a master at putting on this mask of indifference.  
  
"Alec, how is Max doing? Up for a visitor I hope." My light laugh holds the minimum trace of bile. For some ungodly reason he just stares blankly at me, pale eyes roving over me as though sizing up a potential threat.  
  
"Max wishes that she get some undisturbed rest, no one is allowed to see her for another three hours and twenty eight minutes. You may return then." His tone is eerily flat, he might have been giving me the weather forecast for the week for all the emotion his words held.  
  
"Hey man, you're starting to freak me out a bit here. Now why don't you just let me in to see Max, I saw the standoff on the news but it was over by the time I got there. I'd like to make sure that she's okay." Irritation wells up and heats my cheeks. The bastard is treating me like a piece of furniture.  
  
""Max commands that she get some undisturbed rest, no one is allowed to see her for another three hours and twenty seven minutes. You may return then."  
  
"Alright so this is sort of a broken record deal, I get it." With a martyred sigh I push around him and place my hand on the doorknob.  
  
Air exploded from my lungs in a great rushing typhoon while lights flared brilliantly in the periphery of my vision. A fine sheen of plaster coated me from head to toe, sticking viley in my hair gel and choking my nostrils.  
  
Triumph filled me bleakly, I had been right about him. Alec was no better than a beast. Gloating gave way to a slight sense of panic when I realized that the "beast" had me pinned to a wall by the throat.  
  
The bedroom door slammed open and Max charged out, only to halt in stunned silence. "Logan what did you do?"  
  
Wait what? What the hell does she mean, what did I do.  
  
"Oh, yeah. Drop him soldier." Like an overeager puppy, Alec drops me to the floor and stands staring patiently at Max. "This ordinary won't harm me, he may assist us with intel sometimes." The last seems to be added as an afterthought.  
  
I wait patiently for Max to pull me to my feet; then, feeling rather stupid I hoist myself to my feet. Somehow, Max's eyes look a bit glazed, as though her head were a million miles away. Growing impatient, I clear my throat.  
  
Max starts a trifle at the sound. "I'm awake now, bring me some breakfast, and also an icepack for Mr. Cale's throat."  
  
"Ma'am." Without another word, Alec trots away leaving me alone with Max.  
  
Nodding abstractly in my direction, Max motions me towards the bedroom. A wrongness permeates this whole situation, I have the indelible impression that I'm missing something. Well Max just isn't getting rid of me so easily this time. I seat myself on the edge of a chair, back righteously stiff, and Max curls herself, feline, on the corner of the bed.  
  
Something in innocence of that cat-like pose touches my heart and evaporates my irritation. How easy it is to forget that this indomitable woman, is a mere child. An odd paternal feeling stirs my soul. I can vent my annoyance at my reception into other channels.  
  
"So what did you do to Alec, lobotomize him?" Shit, not the right thing to say. Her inner reserves break, and a tidal wave of tears flood down her cheeks.  
  
"He's gone." That doesn't make any sense to me. Then an idea strikes me.  
  
"Oh god Max, was that another clone? I thought he was acting bizarre." What a relief that would be, if Alec had left, to be replaced by another twin.  
  
"No, I mean he's gone. I mean, I mean that was Alec, or it was what was left of him. I mean, shit, why is this so damned hard. Alec did something to himself, to let his training take over his personality. It's something that Manticore taught them, the ones that stayed that is. Anyway, he did this thing, and now his personality or his soul, it's gone. Now he's just some feelingless supersoldier.  
  
Feelings rush through me at high speed. Sadness for Max's sadness, bewilderment over her story and seeming lack of coherence, and lastly, a shameful sensation of relief at having my rival disposed of so neatly.  
  
At second thought, my position was a precarious one, this heroism might make Max idolize Alec. All those inane clichés ran through my head, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that bull.  
  
No, this situation could be turned to my advantage. I may not be able to lend her a shoulder to cry on, but I could provide a sympathetic ear while wining and dining her as I had done during the spring of our relationship.  
  
Adding a little more melancholy to my expression, I lean forward. "Talk to me Max, I'll always be here for you, you know that. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
The sounds of a minor explosion wake me from my deep sleep. Struggling from a tangle of blankets, I stumble across the room and fling open the door.  
  
I'd thought that Logan would try to come to see me. What I hadn't anticipated was his obvious willingness to try to evade my personal security.  
  
It doesn't matter, none of it does. Can't they see that? Why can't they just leave well enough alone?  
  
I realize that Logan might need rescuing. I order his release, and send 494 away so that I can get this interview over with.  
  
The explanation is necessary, can't leave Logan wondering. Bile chokes my throat, and I know that I am stumbling badly over my words. Somehow I must have made my meaning clear though. Now he is leaning in towards me, face glowing in sympathy.  
  
Desperately, I wish that he would leave me alone with my thoughts. Clutching a hand to my mostly healed wound, I let out a small sigh. It is enough. With voluble wishes that I rest and heal, he finally leaves me to my solitude. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
I watch the fool's parade on my imaginary tv. Anger gnaws at me as I watch the other man fawn over the goddess to whom I have sacrificed myself. The unfairness of the situation eats at my sanity. }{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{  
  
494 held the breakfast tray, perfectly balanced across his healing arm. He stood outside his mistress's door, listening intently to the conversation within. The man, the Mr. Cale, was in love with his Max; he could here it in the quickening pace of the man's heart, the flaking earnestness of his voice.  
  
It posed quite a quandary. Could the love an ordinary be good for her? Was the man a threat, despite Max's assertions of his goodness? No, a leader could afford no such distractions, let alone the kind of cloying attentions that this man seemed to offer. He had been charged with acting in Max's best interests. In his opinion, the man would have to be kept away from her. 


	10. Small Things

His stomach pressed flush up against my back. Heat soared between the thin material separating us. Every pore of my skin fluttered against the contact, ingrainging an awareness of our closeness indelibly into my brain.  
  
My ears strained to catch the sound of footsteps. Don't mess this up damnit, don't get caught. Breathe slower, ignore his existence, they might hear me breathing fi I'm too loud. Like the rattling inspiration of a ghost, I hear a creak below. Why the hell do I always screw up the simple things? }{}{}{}{}{{}{}}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{{}{{}{  
  
"Twelve guards placed at strategic positions around the barricade, eight at regular intervals and four at the main gate. All guards stand two hour watches with overlapping rotations." CeCe keeps her eyes on the table as she speaks.  
  
Somehow the eyes which once seemed so alive to me have become empty and forbidding, they cast a visible pall over the room.  
  
"Crews are cleaning up apartments as we speak. So long as the trickle of refugees continues to slow, we should have sufficient livable housing by the end of the week."  
  
Dix leans forward, "what we really need are supplies. Our consumable won't last more than a week at this rate, and out medical supplies are practically non-existant."  
  
An expression which might be joy lights my face. I had planned the heist myself with the help of my watchdog. Absorbing myself in a task so well suited to my abilities had been a catharsis.  
  
"As you can see from these blueprints the Narberth Food's warehouse is the ideal candidate for a hit. Originally, the building was situated next to a stream, so that a water-source was readily available for the canning of foods.  
  
Long subterranean ducts connected the stream to various partso f the polant. Since the streambed became to contaminated to use, around sixty years ago, the plant was connected to the cities watermain system and new pipes were installed.  
  
Because a large section of the pipe is submerged, they simply put grates on the ends of the pipes. As it would take even a professional swimmer about three minutes to reach the dry section of pipe, the company is unconcerned with a breach from that direction.  
  
Bad for them, good for us. Now the crates of goods are shipped in watertight cases. A team of ten will handle the "appropriation of supplies from the plant.  
  
Myself and 494 will circumvent factory security using Logan's very reluctantly given intel, and snatch the crates.  
  
Biggs and Kara will be treading water on the other end of the ducts, waiting for us to hook the crates to a tether and float them out.  
  
CeCe and Radly will be waiting in the getaway vehicle, a lovely semi also thoughtfully provided by Narberth Food's, to load the food.  
  
Andy, Frost, Sela, and Kate will be guarding the perimeter. In the meantime, Dix, Mole, and Josh will monitor communications via these nifty two-way ear-pieces.  
  
We leave tonight at 1900 hours. Everybody grab their gear and rest-up. Got it?" Somehow, saying dismissed just seems too tritely military.  
  
Four Hours Later.  
  
"Blue One to Gold One, we have to guards heading towards your position. Over."  
  
"Copy that. We're deploying in two minutes Kate. Over and out."  
  
Chill breeze tingles over my exposed face and ruffles my hair. The air instills a quality of vibrancy which I have been missing since the hostage crisis.  
  
Now I am in my element. Casually, I dip a toe in the tepid, scummy waters. Did I say that I was in my element? Apparently there's far too much feline in me for me to enjoy a lukewarm swim.  
  
A peek at my companion, in a skintight, black wetsuit, does something to restore the warmth to my blood.  
  
"You remember the camera sequences and guard rotations to the facility right?"  
  
A cool, unflappable "Yes Ma'am," is all that I get in return. I wish desperately that I had someone with whom I could trade snide remarks. Someone to calm my nerves. I busied myself double-checking my safety rigging and earpiece.  
  
"Hey Big-Fella, you read me?"  
  
"Official channel oh fearless leader, no small-talk on the job." I huff back at Mole and turn back to my partner. My breath catches messily in my throat. With his head tilted downward and his hair hanging over his brow, I could mistake him for Alec.  
  
He looks up, and his eyes shatter the illusion. I have to hold myself in, keep the boy and the soldier separated. When this is over I'll allow myself to mourn what I lost.  
  
Closing off my feeling like a leaky tap, I straighten up. I can be a soldier when I have to, all of us can.  
  
"Let's go 494." He slides noiselessly into the water behind me. The waters slide sleekly over my wetsuit, and both of us make it to the dry piping before my lungful of oxygen goes stale.  
  
Static scratches my ear as I flip the switch. "We're in." We creep along like twin shadows, so lithe as to be nearly incorporeal.  
  
The boundless crates of food might have been the gold of Persia, so beautiful was the sight of the stuff that would save us. I see the first security camera, focused on an area about a meter ahead.  
  
"Guards only tour the facility every hour, we have 48 minutes of safety. There's only one tv-screen in the guard tower."  
  
Please say how awful you feel for the television-less guards, please be yourself.  
  
"It switches between cameras every 45 seconds. Five cameras, three minutes of safety, 45 second breaks. You'll go down halfway to the waterline and I'll carry the crates to you."  
  
It doesn't seem fair to give him the more dangerous and therefore more exciting assignment; but I don't trust myself to keep track of the time as well as he can, and our survival depends on this mission.  
  
Twenty crates later I was getting bored. It was almost with a sense of relief that I heard a blaring alarm sound. Why, oh why do I always screw up the simple things? 


	11. Planning and Controlling

Anger, denial, repression, regret, numbness. Numbness, coldness, no pain, not anymore.  
  
I learned in that first blistering day exactly why the soldier felt no pain. It sent it here to me. The pain which could distract it was banished like all other distractions to this space of grey.  
  
I learned in that first bitter night how to hold it. How to build around it a wall, a wall of mental bricks. Now I mourn even the loss of the pain. Now there is nothing left, not even the insanity.  
  
I am not. I am nothing. What I was fades, I am no longer, and yet I am forced to stay. Ice freezes my eyelids open, fire consumes me without warmth.  
  
How do I live in a hell of my own making, how do I watch her life go on. The fire is her sadness. Consumption, the idea that her tears are shed for me. Torture, that there might have been something there, something that I missed, or something that I saw too clearly but never acknowledged.  
  
The 12 is Pandora's grey box. I let It out, him. All that remains with me is one small spark of hope. I feel it flickering, flagging. I let It out and now I must watch Its betrayal. Anger burns my throat as I watch It. It must have a reason, and if It does not so help me, I will destroy us both.  
  
Conscience safely bolted within, It was free to move on with its plans. 494 had been charged with protecting her.  
  
To It she was a goddess. It would do anything to protect her, and like a deity above, she was not consulted. His jurisdiction to decide what was in her best interests. Towards these ends he had made a neat list of goals.  
  
Friends could not be discouraged; she needed them to stay grounded, to keep interested in day to day life. Love on the other hand, had the potential to make her messy.  
  
Humans and transgenics alike did stupid things when they indulged in heavy emotions. Giddiness left one oblivious to attack; and worse yet, a person in love often felt the need to be nobly self-sacrificing. Therefore, his ward would be gently dissuaded from loving.  
  
Its plan was two-fold. First he would shake her faith in Cale's loyalties. Then he would use psychology like a battering ram, to show her the error of loving a human.  
  
The setup had been simple. A little eavesdropping and a few innocuous questions to Max's friends had told 494 all that he needed to know about the relationship between Max and Cale.  
  
In all reality, It did not believe that they were really suited to each other. Cale was a romantic, Max was passionate. The two qualities were quite disparate and statistically did not make a very strong relationship.  
  
The virus had been the problem. History would seem to indicate that Max wanted things that she couldn't have the unavailable male. As a romantic, Cale was moved by the idea of a beautiful queen, untouchable by him, the lonely knight.  
  
Long-term, Cale needed someone to appreciate the grandiose gestures of candlelit dinners and moonlit strolls on the beach. Max needed someone full of life and desire.  
  
All that It needed to do was get Max to believe in these facts. To 494's advantage, she underestimated its ability to think. Psychology could be hidden neatly in bite-sized innocuous comments.  
  
The only thing lacking was opportunity. Max showed an unfortunate tendency to dislike speaking to him. He needed time alone with her.  
  
That was when it came to him. Cale had been extremely reluctant to help the transgenics break into an honest business. If something were to go wrong with the theft, Max would recognize the gruesome possibilities that Logan might have sabotaged her.  
  
At the same time, he could arrange one of those oddly frequent interludes in which Max and he would be forced to hide from the enemy in a tight space to avoid capture.  
  
Now the only consideration was ensuring that Max would not be injured or captured in the incident. __________________________________  
  
494 watched its watch assiduously, counting down the minutes of safety as it carried crates to Max.  
  
Forty-five seconds of break-time while the camera focused on their area. Max was on the other side of the building, now was the time to strike.  
  
Pulling a painfully concealed pocket-knife out of its wetsuit, 494 walked into the next room and through a door marked "cleaning tanks".  
  
It bent over a sodium hypochlorite tank for a moment. As it walked back to Max, carefully hoisting a last crate, it could here the faint spurting of bleach as it sprayed the floor.  
  
In ten seconds, the electronic sensors in the tanks would register the leak. Ten seconds until the safety alarm sounded, calling a single technician from his warm bed to check the spill.  
  
But Max wouldn't know that the alarm wasn't sounding for her. She wouldn't know that a single, slightly overweight chemist would be the only reinforcements to investigate the alarm.  
  
Picking up its speed, 494 grabbed Max's arm and pulled her carefully into a side room and boosted her up into the ever-convenient heating duct which it had singled out as the staging grounds for their conversation.  
  
Max didn't know that she wasn't in any danger. Somehow it thought that she might relish the rush of fear spurred adrenaline. If It had been capable, It would have been smiling at that moment. 


	12. Out of Love, In Love

Thank you all for reviewing! I am sorry, I meant to have this posted on Valentines Day but so goes life. To clear it up, in the last chapter I referred to 494 as It. Sorry to disappoint, but I don't think that I'll be having him kill Logan. That isn't to say that someone else won't do it. As Virginia Woolfe says, "one of them must die so that the rest of us appreciate life more." Or it goes something like that. So anything might happen. No teary faces, some characters are just too cute to kill off. Enjoy. Or not. Free will and all that.  
Love. Sweet love. It makes us lie and kill. It makes us insane with jealousy and impotent with rage. It makes us glow with the light of one another.  
  
What makes us burn; chemical signals, fate, signs in the stars? Love makes us stupid, love makes of us fools. Love makes us wise, sometimes. It makes us stronger and inexonerably weaker.  
  
We fall in and out of love like changing a dirty pair of socks for another, and sometimes we put just as much thought into it. Ain't love grand? #############################################################  
  
The footsteps moved off and my break escaped in a little rattling hiss. "Josh." Static crackles over my earpiece.  
  
"Joshua here Little-fella." The soft voice is so welcome that I nearly sob aloud.  
  
"Joshua, they've moved past our position. We're going to hold up here for another half hour or so, make sure that it's safe. Then we'll meet up with the others at the truck.  
  
"Got you Little-fella, Joshua out." Our connection breaks and once again I am cornered by reality; stuck in a tight, hot, little ventilator shaft with the chilling remains of my best-friend. Seconds tick by. To my surprise, 494 is the first to break the silence.  
  
"Perhaps there were security precautions in place in the factory, which were not mentioned in the reconnaissance report."  
  
Well thank you Captain Obvious. Since I hadn't screwed up the job and 494 had assuredly, and so unlike his alter-ego, not screwed up the job; there must have been a flaw in Logan's Intel.  
  
Either age was making him careless, or Logan's worry for me was distracting him. He'd been so reluctant for me to go on this mission. Although I wasn't sure if his contention had been over my safety or over the idea of thieving from a legitimate corporation.  
  
I didn't see why he would worry for my safety. He hadn't been all that squeamish about sending on life or death Eyes Only missions.  
  
Two ugly thoughts hit me simultaneously. The first was that Logan had always seemed terribly unconcerned with my safety when he had been the one putting me in jeopardy. He had had no qualms about sending me up against mobsters and psycho-killers.  
  
The other nasty thought was that the Intel on this factory must have been ridiculously easy to gather for a hacker of his skill. That meant that he had been careless, an unforgivable offense in a soldier's eyes.  
  
A worse conclusion was that he had set me up to fail, knowing that I was capable of evading capture, but that the setback would might effectively keep the company safe from my thieving ways.  
  
"Logan may have missed something when he was hacking into their mainframe here." Even through my doubts, I am trying to protect him.  
  
"The information must have been hidden ma'am, Mr. Cale seems to be very thorough in his planning."  
  
Thorough? Now that was an understatement. Not only were Logan's socks color coordinated to match the candles on his dining room table; but I was pretty sure that he had his past dinners and moonlit walks planned out until 2029.  
  
In both is life's work and his romances, he had strictly regimented ideas about right and wrong.  
  
Don't steal from people, though in his new hard times that credo had morphed into, don't steal from people who aren't murderers or philandering politicians.  
  
Treat women like princesses. They are porcelain, and should they fall of their pedestals they may shatter.  
  
Well, what woman didn't want to be treated like a princess? Spontaneous acts of loving devotion were what made life worth living.  
  
Spontaneous acts.  
  
I tried to shake my dissatisfaction. I had led a rough, uncertain life. What did I know about romance? Wasn't that what Logan was for, to teach me about love?  
  
Nope, no dissatisfaction, unhappiness all gone. Except that somehow, the romance seemed cloying. I wanted to drown in my passions, not be drowned by affection. Somehow there was a difference there.  
  
A shake on the arm brought me back down to earth. Hazel eyes, opaque and oblivious, forced me to shutter away my soul-searching.  
  
All of these romantic ruminations had taken up the entire half hour and it was time for another swim. My inner feline shuddered. ###########################################################  
  
Understanding dawned on Alec like a cold swim. His own alter-ego wasn't beast or a monster, he was a blessing in disguise.  
  
As a shred of the soldier had been harbored in Alec's soul, so a remnant of the man remained 494. A man determined to be with the woman that he loved.  
  
To give him his due, the soldier was managing a task with Alec had figured impossible. While the job of turning Max away from Logan would have been nearly impossible for a man as smitten with her as Alec was; a seemingly uninterested third party could get close enough to plant that spark of doubt in her brain.  
  
Purpose filled Alec and the encroaching darkness trickled away. Nothing was ever impossible if you believed in it enough. He had to hold on, he had to find a way back. #############################################################  
  
She followed at a distance.  
  
A heady sense of attraction filled her as she watched the little soldier woman and her protector slink back to meet their compatriots.  
  
Lela's mate would have sliced her limb from limb had he known she felt an attraction to one of the "filthy animals"; but some primal quality in the male soldier drew her. A beast of the same material from which she had been cut.  
  
She smiled to herself. Ames had never been told of her heritage when they were wedded. The fool had simply been glad to be matched with her rather than one of those thick-bodied cows that the familiars called sisters.  
  
While most of their women were of the sturdy and thick-boned Northern European stock, chosen for their health and strength, she was something a bit more exotic.  
  
It had all started 400 hundred years ago at the behest of an early Sandeman. He had believed that the women bread by the familiars lacked a certain ruthless cunning. Although they could be vicious and fierce, they didn't have that certain animalistic edge.  
  
Lela was a direct descendant of the first of Sandeman's experiments in feral rage. Her great two the third grandmother had been a simple Sicilian farm girl. Lucia, the beautiful girl in the average arranged marriage. Then dear old Guilio had felt free to start fooling around like the good for nothing fathers before him.  
  
A little belladonna in the chianti to even up their strength. She eviscerated him with a roasting prong.  
  
It was a stoning offense, but the townspeople were too frightened of her. On the midnight before her hanging a small guard of familiars stole her away.  
  
As Lucia had mated Arthur Sandeman four centuries before, the tides had come full circle and her many generations granddaughter wedded his descended grandson.  
  
Cruelty and cunning were her legacy. Though the others shunned her, she was their future. The power of Lucia's blood would not fail her sister in faith. 


	13. Fading In, Fading Out

No reviews? My poor heart is shaken, but you see how nice I am I post anyway; and not just any chapter but this stunning doublewide masterpiece. If any of you don't like the direction this story is going, please criticize gently. If you like what you see cat-call and send candy, or just review. Peace, love, and enjoy.  
  
* Authors note, there is a section preceded and followed by ********, this is a flashback.  
  
*Disclaimer: I don't own them, and they wouldn't fit in my tiny apartment even if I did. Which I don't. #############################################################  
  
How can we hate those we don't know? How can we not judge each person separately as we would wish to be judged? How could we kill a single child from afar, before that child has lived even a decade because the child's fathers have been bad and wrong? How can we spill blood? #############################################################  
  
They scream for our blood. They beg for it to be spilled like wine across the streets. For every extremist willing to take to the streets in protest, there must have been twenty times as many willing to silently hate us from the comfort of their own homes.  
  
How could so much hate live in the world? My perch atop a dilapidated apartment building does not give me the same rush as sitting on the space needle, but it gives me sufficient height to see the angry mob circulating outside the wall.  
  
The need to escape it all burned at the back of my mind. Less than a week ago I had been a fucking bike messenger; I'd had friends and a job, a social life even.  
  
Now I was a freak. Not just a freak, the queen freak. I needed to get out of here for a night, go out and be a regular girl again.  
  
A few creative lies about certain feminine problems allowed me to elude my friends. Men were so easy sometimes. Then it was just a little matter of squeezing through the bottom of the perimeter fence during the guard rotations.  
  
The noisy clamor at Crash would have been the best medicine for my blues, but I was far too well known there. Instead I walked down to the nearby waterfront and picked a seedy looking bar at random.  
  
On the outside, The Grog was an unprepossessing looking establishment; on the inside it was far dingier. Keeping my head down I bellied up to the bar. This didn't look like the sort of place where one would order a pitcher of light beer.  
  
The mess and ready availability of hard liquor reminded me inextricably of Alec.  
  
"Scotch, on the rocks." It was the least I could do to honor his memory.  
  
I almost gagged on the first swallow, how the hell did he drink this stuff? My nose hairs felt singed, and a deep sneeze bent me forward. As I straightened back up, someone had the deep effrontery to give me a smack on the ass.  
  
"Well their girlie, someone can't hold their liquor." The man, to use the term very loosely, standing behind me looked as though he were the one who couldn't hold his liquor; despite his hulking size. He was striving for an expression of seductive masculinity, but came off looking rather glazed.  
  
"I'm not interested." I strive to control my baser instincts to maim and kill. Maybe if I turn around and ignore the jerk, he'll take hint. My shoulders twitch as a hand pats down on them.  
  
"Interested in what sweetheart?" He let out a falsely hardy chuckle. "I was just thinking that a hot number like you might be looking for a nice time."  
  
"I said Not Interested." Keep looking at the table, don't get pissed.  
  
"Come on Babe." Dinner platter sized hands clap around my waist. Ten years of brutal conditioning made me react without thinking. My elbows cut down shattering his grip on my hips, and my fist shot out smashing into his nose.  
  
The brute backed away clutching his bloodied face, with an expression of shock then aped quickly out the door.  
  
I tried to go back to my drink, but this dive lacked even the dubious charms of Crash. Grabbing my leather jacket, I followed the example of the bleeding behemoth and headed for the door.  
  
Crisp, fishy night air was a welcome change from the smoke of the bar, and the unusually cloudless sky was filled with stars. I leaned against the wall and let starlight fill my eyes.  
  
Alec had told me that Manticore taught him astronomy as a method of orienteering, but I had skipped out long before then. Staring upwards I tried to remember the constellations which he'd showed me that night. I failed to find anything save the North Star.  
  
How useful, now I knew where Canada was. Temptation filled me. So easy to run away to another country, another place where I wasn't known. Blend in, start a new life for myself. It was just a dream though; a leader can't leave their troops.  
  
"Hey there sweetheart." Goddamn my stargazing, the jerk I'd punched in the bar had used my distraction to sneak up on me. I turned around to dispose of him, and my stomach flipped queasily; the jerk had brought along some of his little friends.  
  
Manticore may have made us stronger, faster, and better; but, one little girl up against ten large, neck-less men wasn't good odds. I clung to a vague hope that they mightn't know that I was a transgenic.  
  
We stare at each other for a beat, and then they all rush me at once. Shit, so much for not knowing what I am, they're not taking any chances.  
  
I knock out one with an uppercut, a second with a jaw-shattering kick to the head, but there are too many. Two of them manage to pin my arms while a third winds back his fist. Bravery fails me for a moment and I shut my eyes.  
  
"Ughfff." I hear the explosive sound of fist against flesh, but the corresponding grunt didn't come from my lips. I crack my eyes.  
  
Either he had trailed me at a distance, or his attunement with his animal instincts had allowed him to sniff me out like a bloodhound. Regardless, I counted my blessings that 494 had found me in time.  
  
As a pair, we made short work of the remaining cretins.  
  
"You're cut ma'am." He tilts my face up and traces his thumb gently across my eyebrow. The breathless rush of blood to my head numbs the pain as he press a scrap of cloth torn from his shirt against the jagged tear across my brow.  
  
************ "You're cut Maxie." We'd just finished rescuing a pair of badly beaten X-6's from certain death at the hands of White.  
  
The rush of blood to my head numbs the pain as he gently presses a bit of cloth against it. For just a moment my eyes meet his, and the warmth in their hazel depths holds me breathless. ************  
  
For just a moment our eyes meet, but no spark stirs their depths this time.  
  
"Mutant freaks." His eyes widen for a moment and 494 crumples to the ground. My eyes snap to the man standing behind him.  
  
We had neglected to count the pile of brainless men lying on the ground. Now it appeared that one of the first two that I had disposed of had recovered sufficiently to grab a piece of broken glass off the filthy sidewalk and avenge his mates.  
  
I snarl wordlessly at the man. He whimpers with fright as he realizes that his makeshift weapon is still buried in 494's flesh.  
  
Moments like these are boundless in their clarity. There is no fog, no haze, just you and the stars. One step, two hands, and then a little crunch. I turn from the pile of meat and bone and run back to my comrade's side.  
  
He lay like a dead dog on the road in a pool of blood. No emotion lines his face, and I realize that somehow even this pain is kept at bay. He is such a product of training that even the distraction of death is kept at bay.  
  
I pull off my shirt without reservations and press it against the hole in his side. Fortune had saved me the brutal task of pulling out the glass, it had fallen out on its own when he had hit the pavement.  
  
"Stay with me buddy, listen to my voice." It doesn't seem right to call him 494, not when he lays cradled and bleeding across my lap.  
  
Alec's cell phone, did 494 still carry it? My hands riffled as gently as possible through his clothes, and finally hit pay dirt in his left jacket pocket.  
  
Please pick up, please pick up. Biggs's voice was like heaven on the other line. "Biggs, don't talk, we're on the corner of Ransted and Waterfront down by the piers. Alec is wounded, badly. Please just hurry." I hang up quickly before he can offer any comfort, I don't deserve it.  
  
"Can you still here me?" His hands are so cold and his pulse beats threadily against my fingers.  
  
A languorous tear drips down the side of his face, with a shock I realize that it is from his own eyes and not one of mine.  
  
"Alec, are you in there? Damnit I know you're still in there and you can't screw this up again you dick. Don't die, not because of me, not again."  
  
A light flutter of eyelashes drew my attention back to his eyes. He blinked them open with torturous slowness, and my eyes locked on his. I felt frozen, I could see all of it in their hazel depths; fright for his life, sadness for my tears, and some other indefinable emotion which warmed my stomach.  
  
"Maxie." He nodded once at me, and then began to shake with deep, shuddering, convulsions.  
  
I held him tight with one arm, while grasping for his pulse with the other hand. Against all hope it felt stronger and steadier, and the paroxysms began to lessen.  
  
I swear that my eyes never left his face, but when his eyes opened again minutes later, they were as cold and opaque as ever. ###########################################################  
  
Pain lanced through my sleep waking me more effectively than any alarm.  
  
With the ease of practice, I began to focus the pain into a tangible thread. In the week or so that I had been trapped in this grey hell, 494 had broken an arm, sprained an ankle sparring, and acquired contusions and bruises to numerous to mention.  
  
My friends left to live their lives on the outside had often remarked on 494's ability to ignore his pain while continuing to fight. They didn't know that the asshole ignored his pain by burying it deep in his mind, burying it in the same portion of subconscious in which I resided.  
  
For every little scraped knee that 494 got, I had suffered; but then I had wised up. Everything in the Grey, as I had come to refer to my subconscious, was malleable, a controllable dream. I had learned to take the pain in and make it tangible. Then the pain could be walled away behind a figurative brick wall where it couldn't hurt me.  
  
All of the pain that is, with the seeming exception of this pain. What the hell had that moron done to us this time? This was suffering beyond anything I had endured, even at the hands of Manticore.  
  
It was pain undiluted by endorphins or any other little tricks of the body. There were distinct disadvantages to being non-corporeal.  
  
My concentration began to fail as the burning in my side became unbearable. I stopped trying to wall the sensations away, and instead allowed them to wash over me.  
  
As though from a great deal of blood-loss, the room began to blur and fade. Heaviness made my eyelids droop and I allowed them to shut.  
  
Suddenly as it had come, the pain began to recede and I wondered dumbly whether this was what it felt like to die.  
  
New sensations bit into my skin, a chill wind, wet pavement, and the smell of salt and for some reason dead fish.  
  
My eyes blinked open.  
  
"Maxie." I didn't know if she was an angel or a hallucination. I soaked in the vision as she began vibrate.  
  
I tried so hard to hold onto her, but the world faded again to grey. ###########################################################  
  
*There really was a point to this chapter, other than teasing you. Honestly, would I lie? 


	14. Little Insecurities

Here we go. Logan gets insecure, Max tries to figure out what happened with Alec outside the bar, and our favorite villain makes a dramatic re- entry. #############################################################  
  
"Thud, thud, thud, crack." "Thud, thud, thud, crack." As an aid to meditation, banging my computer chair into my desk really sucks, and yet I've been steadily chipping away at my desk for the last hour and a half.  
  
Her face fills my head. Do I still have whatever it was that drew her to me. She used to look at me sometimes, when she thought I wouldn't notice. This look of tenderness overcame the tough-girl image, that smile that melted me.  
  
Then nothing went right for us; though I think that it was her luck. Black cats walk in her wake, and ladders and broken glass magically materialize in her path.  
  
It isn't fair, I wasn't ready to give up yet. She looks at me now like I don't exist. Casting call over, sent to join the ranks of her dead brothers and sisters. I ought to move to Canada, start over fresh in a place where you can still buy a decent bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.  
  
Somehow I know that I can't. She may have moved on, but the scent of her still haunts me. Until the last drop of her blood leaves my veins, she lives in me. #############################################################  
  
"a four inch incision causing damage to the exterior and interior oblique on the lower left side. Little to no visible internal bleeding. Slight bruising to the 4th and 5th lumbar vertebra, consistent with the fall."  
  
"Well?" Kate, who was now in charge of the infirmary, had a creepy way of making her diagnoses sound like an autopsy. She was also trying my patience in the extreme.  
  
"Physically, I expect a full recovery in two days. Mentally, I don't know what to tell you. There is a very remote chance that Alec's personality returned briefly to dominance. Still I think it's more likely that the head trauma blacked out the recognition portion of 494's memory. Therefore, when he attempted to identify you, he dug into a cache of Alec's old memories."  
  
Kate looks nervous as she speaks. Okay you can't blame a girl for having a reputation for uncontrolled bursts of temper. She needn't have worried, ever since the moment Alec spoke my name, I had felt this pervading sense of calm.  
  
"I know it sounds crazy Kate, but I saw what I saw. It was him, it was my Alec. I could see the difference in his eyes." She smiles back at me.  
  
"If I didn't know better Max."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing, really it's nothing. I just had a thought, but sharing time is over. Besides I like my internal organs exactly where they are. Not to change the subject, but Joshua and Mole are waiting for you in Command."  
  
Great, if she isn't acting like an undertaker, she gets delusions of being a sphinx. I cuff Kate on the shoulder and make an exit with the remaining portions of my dignity.  
  
"Six, Seven, Eight." Two units of X-6's are training out in the green, I lean against a balustrade and stop to watch them. The familiar, repetitive movements are soothing.  
  
"Max, hey Max, oh thank god I found you I was so worried and I came just as soon as I could."  
  
Logan stands before me, and oddly I find myself neither thrilled nor saddened to see him. Instead I feel a vague wonderment at seeing him. The past twenty-four hours had erased his existence from my memory.  
  
His bespectacled eyes wander my body, taking me in. I fight off the silly impulse to rip off his glasses and stomp on them, anything to wipe the goofy expression of puppy-dog adoration off his face.  
  
"Max, I heard about him, and I meant to come by that is, that is to apologize for what happened at the food, hum factory." He seems to be thrown by the coolness of his reception, even Logan doesn't babble this badly.  
  
"It's fine, really Logan. I wasn't hurt at the factory, or at the bar. As for the factory, I'm sure that it wasn't in any way your fault." I feel the oddly maternal urge to placate him, let him know that I don't blame him. Damn maternal urges. My words seem to encourage him and he insinuates himself more closely into my personal space.  
  
"Maybe I could make it up to you tonight? I thought that maybe you'd like to get out of here for awhile and come back to my place? I could make some." I cut him off before he can say it, I might have gone ballistic if he said the word pasta.  
  
"Really Logan, I think that I got myself into enough trouble the last time I snuck out for a night of fun. Besides it doesn't seem appropriate to tell my people not to sneak out of here, then go out myself." Triumph! His face closes off, his tail droops between his legs.  
  
"Well if you ever, ever need anything, you know you can count on me." I nod absently and give him a small smile for his troubles; and by the time I look up again he has already wandered off. #############################################################  
  
My lover lays sprawled extravagantly across my bed, a far away look in her eyes. She is so lovely, so unlike the other women of our kind. Coming back to reality, she crawls cat-like to my side and strokes the bandage across my throat.  
  
"It won't be long now my love, I followed the beasties all the way to the backdoor of their lair." My lips move soundlessly in reply, and she reads them without effort.  
  
"Patience never was your strong suit Ames, but yes we will make our move by the end of next week. Don't worry love, the kill has your name on it. I am but a humble servant of the Familiars, my place is in the shadows, watching."  
  
Her words are carefully tailored, she knows what I want to hear; but I'm not as gullible as Lela thinks me. There is something hidden beneath her words, something that does not compliment her pretty words.  
  
I had learned long ago of Lela's heritage. Although Lucia's story was well- hidden among the more shameful tales of the Conclave's past, I was a Sandeman and no records were barred to me.  
  
It suited my purposes to allow her to underestimate me. Lela was the ultimate predator and I enjoyed our little games. Besides this, her usefulness as a hunter was beyond a doubt.  
  
A purring rumble sounded deep in her throat as I ran my fingers across her arms. So pretty, and so very clever; and so fortunate that she still fed me useful tidbits such as my opponent's weakness. It would be a shame to destroy such a perfect match to myself to soon. 


	15. Dreamscapes and a Lover's Goodbye

Hey cheers to my reviewers, you're a just about a girls best friend. In this next happy chapter our heroes get a little well deserved shut-eye, and our villainess hums a happy tune. Don't ya'll worry, it'll all turn out happy in the end. Also in case anyone is wondering, La Belle Dame sans Merci is a gorgeous painting by Waterhouse, the beautiful woman without kindness. So feel free to sing along, and enjoy.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own them, except of course Lela and if anyone is nuts enough to want her after this chapter than they are free to take her (but admit that you'd fear for your life if you had her). #############################################################  
  
Drip, drip, drip-Drip. My head presses against my knees, my body lies folded against the floor. A stale cold air pulsates around me. The tiny scrap of floor visible between my knees is a dull grey.  
  
Arms circle my waist and lift me bodily from the floor. Like a folding chair, my legs automatically straighten to take my weight.  
  
"The time is late." I speak unconsciously, but the words feel right.  
  
"It is growing late, but time holds no sway over this place my angel." His hands lift my arms, swaying them listlessly as though I were a rag doll. Anger flames my cheeks.  
  
"How can you be so blasé, live in this nightmare?"  
  
"Ah, La Belle Dame sans Merci. You forget, I came here for you."  
  
"You abandoned me!"  
  
"I saved you ingrate." Flashing to life, my hand pulls back threatening to slap; but at the last moment he catches my wrist. Little shivers quake down my back as he presses his lips to my fingers.  
  
"Why am I here Alec? I know that this isn't real."  
  
"You're asking me sweetheart? This is your head, your heaven, your hell. You're here because you're dreaming. Here because your subconscious wants to play show and tell."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Always the temper Maxie." God, I love to hear that name from his lips. "You see things everyday, things which you don't really notice. Little tidbits of information are stored away in your subconscious without your ever seeing them."  
  
"So now my brain has decided that I'm getting senile, and this lovely little dream will show me everything that I've been missing?" Perhaps I've gone too far, he looks pissed.  
  
"This is a gift Maxie, most humans don't have this kind of memory retrieval. If you don't want to see what your mind has to offer, then wake yourself up. Just follow the signs." He points off to the right and out of nowhere a path of neon lights appears.  
  
Fear fills me that I've ruined this and that he'll suddenly disappear again. "Stop, you know I'm staying. You aren't going to leave me right? Please don't go. I don't care if you aren't real."  
  
His face softens and he pulls me to his chest. "I'm real, if you want it. Anything is possible if you want it enough. Now close your eyes."  
  
The air vibrated around us and the air freshened noticeably. When my eyes flickered open, we stood in the middle of a grungy Seattle street, the entrance to Jam Pony was just visible a few blocks down.  
  
"This is nice isn't it? Much better than all of that grey. You will be as I am now, an on-looker in your body. Remember this, you won't be able to move or speak of your own volition. You are here to take advantage of being a spectator, you must take note of your surroundings. Look for the things which you missed. Watch now."  
  
My perspective shifted, as though suddenly rejoining with my body. Startled, I almost tripped over by sprinting feet. This was the day of the hostage crisis. Remembering Alec's words I stopped trying to control my body's movements and started to scan the area.  
  
A queasy feeling fills my stomach as I see White's reinforcements running up behind us. Though I knew we would defeat him, I also knew the cost. "Look for the things you missed." Alec's words spun through my head.  
  
Yes, there was something wrong in the scene. There was White. There were his white-bread followers. At last my eyes spotted the trick. A woman lurking in the corner. She couldn't be one of White's familiars. She was built closer to a transgenic, light, lithe, and exotically gorgeous.  
  
To my surprise, my eyes refocused and I realized that I still had my enhanced vision even in this incorporeal form. By great fortune, her hair was pulled up, off of her neck. A tingling warning sounded in my head, she didn't have a barcode so she wasn't one of us; but she couldn't be an innocent onlooker. Not only had every normal run in fear, but there was something cruelly predatory in her stance.  
  
Perspective shifted again and I found myself running towards the van the night of the food-raid. I could see what I'd missed the first time around, the same dark woman was hiding off in the shadows, watching and smiling.  
  
Fear and knowledge filled me. Refocusing my attention to my hearing, my premonition was confirmed. Faint against the chirping of night crickets, I made out the incessant beeping of a radio transmitter.  
  
Without a doubt the dark woman had planted the transmitter. She had to be working with White, and now White knew how to breach security in Terminal City.  
  
A heavy sob hiccupped through me and a pair of strong arms supported me, softly stroking my back. "It's tough Maxie, but it's so much better to know."  
  
"When is it coming?" I lean back, staring straight into his eyes. He smiles ruefully.  
  
"That isn't how it works and you know it. This isn't magic or myth. It's seeing things that you already knew, but didn't recognize."  
  
I look around at the darkened factory and the sludgy water; I've really lived some kind of life.  
  
Alec seems to read my mind. His hands pass across my face, and when I look up the dark scene is replaced by a sun-lit, grassy meadow.  
  
He gently touches my brow. "See Maxie girl, there is some beauty remaining there still. You'll be waking up soon, back in your bed. Promise me that you'll remember what came to pass here, there is too much at stake for you to forget."  
  
Pain fills my heart, knowing that this isn't real doesn't help the leaving. "Come back with me, I don't think that I can do this alone. Just come back with me."  
  
He bends down and plucks a single daisy from the field, placing it delicately in my cupped hands. His lips brush my forehead, my cheek, and finally my ear. "Wake and remember angel."  
  
###################  
  
My head flies off of my pillow with a little gasp. Tears threaten at the corners of my eyes as memories of the dream flood me. Small hiccups catch in my throat as I reach my hand up to brush at my eyes. A single daisy had fallen to lie against my knees. #############################################################  
  
Arms flailing out, 494 woke from its allotted four hours of sleep. Confusion filled its head for a brief second. Though it knew beyond a doubt that it had fallen asleep in its own bunk, somehow it had woken up leaned against the wall outside its commander's quarters.  
  
Confusion, as a useless emotion, was abandoned. 494 rose from the wall and began walking to the cafeteria for the morning meal. #############################################################  
  
Alec lay in his imaginary bed, in his imaginary room, staring intently at the wall. With every second the images in his mind grew dimmer. He held the remainder of the dream as gently as the petals of a fragile flower. She had been so real and so very near in this dream. If only it had been real. #########################################################  
  
Lela smiled to herself. The time was growing late; the time to strike was almost upon the Victorious. She ran one blood red nail over the tips of the twin darts.  
  
Though many centuries had passed, her family's love of poison hadn't diminished. This elixir was nothing as crude as belladonna. Lela was something of an expert on bio-toxins, and this was her favorite. It didn't kill nor even cause permanent damage.  
  
In her mind, poison should not kill, it was meant to even the playing field between the muscular strength of men and a woman's cunning. This mixture caused immediate paralysis. Although the effects lasted only about a half an hour, she would have complete power.  
  
Humming a little to herself she sang the lullaby of her mother's before her.  
  
"Oh my sweetheart the time grows late, The time grows late as the grass is long.  
  
Oh my sweetheart our meeting was fate, In truth our shared love could be not but strong.  
  
But over the hill my lover is spied, And the man I wedded grows weak.  
  
The pains of love o'er how I've cried, Of the pains of love neither shall speak.  
  
Men shall wander away from a girl, Till she seeks a greener grass.  
  
My men have wandered to seek a new pearl, Now my time with both has passed.  
  
One kiss no husband doth please, With sad tears I bury my troth.  
  
One kiss to the happiness of my hearts ease, And a chilly death to them both."  
  
She glanced back to bedroom where her wedded slept on in peace. Such a sad little lullaby, but so true. Lela patted her stomach where her daughter slept. Ames's purpose was ended, and it just wasn't proper for a daughter of Lucia's line to know her father.  
Okay I know, putting a song in of my own making is trite and I won't be winning any grammy's anytime soon. But honestly I swear she has a lovely singing voice and you don't want to be the one to tell her she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. 


	16. Facing the Dusk, Waiting for Dawn

"Hurry, over there."  
  
"No not like that, like this. No idiot like this."  
  
"They need more shells on the east tower."  
  
"Ouch!"  
  
"Shit, I'm sorry. Is it broken?"  
  
"Just the rim, it'll still work."  
  
"Where's Mole I've got to have him approve these deployments."  
  
"He's off fondling an AK-47, where do you think he is?"  
  
"Uhmmm, central command?"  
  
"Oh biscuit for the brilliant X-5."  
  
"Shut-up ass."  
  
"Make me wussy." #########################################################  
  
My head spins on its axis, as I take in the bedlam before me. I am now the proud leader of eighteen hundred and eighty-seven extremely disorganized, killing machines.  
  
They hadn't believed me at first, they hadn't wanted too. I thanked whatever gods watched over us, that Biggs hadn't gotten around to returning that stolen truck yet.  
  
Like an angry hornet, the homing device still clung to the vehicle's undercarriage. Hard proof had turned an insane dream into a scramble to arms.  
  
To my great fortune, everyone was so caught up in their preparations for battle that no one questioned my source of foreknowledge. I didn't relish the thought of telling Mole, CeCe, and Biggs that I was basing my command decisions on dreams of a lost, of a man whom, of a friend that is.  
  
The racket in the courtyard, rising to an unbearable level, demanded my attention. With a lithe flip, I hopped the railing of the command centers balcony and ran over to the two male X's tussling below.  
  
Raining my fists indiscriminately down upon both of their heads, pain eventually soaked through their testosterone haze.  
  
A soft chuckle sounded behind me. "Men, a little sweat, a little blood, a few hormones, and they turn into puppy dogs."  
  
Kate reached into the bloodied fray and grabbed one of the offenders by the back of the neck while I grabbed another by the back of the shirt. We silently propelled both of them back to their feet.  
  
"Your commander is standing right in front of you boys, ATTENTION." Who knew that Kate had such a big voice? I was beginning to think that the boys back at Manticore had put a little tigress in all of us.  
  
Looking appropriately shamed the tall pair shuffled their feet, and mumbled their apologies. "Just get back to work fellas." At my command they about- face and continue on the missions which their brawl had temporarily interrupted.  
  
"I swear Kate, a few months out of Manticore and a bunch of highly trained soldiers revert into sloppy twenty-something children. How are we ever going to win this fight?"  
  
"Pressure." I looked question marks at her. "Some people can't handle strain. Some people thrive under it. Maybe freedom has gone to our heads a bit; but you don't know Max, how much they have in them.  
  
You see those people out there? I know that they don't look like much now but they've got so much training and gone through so much hell."  
  
I resent her implications, that I don't understand them because of the escape; but beneath the sting, I feel the truth behind her words. Kate misinterprets the down expression on my face.  
  
"You do know that you're famous, don't you Max? You got to have so much freedom, and you had this tight family unit of brothers and sisters. What you need to realize, is that all of us who stayed were a family as well. We didn't have the luxury of names or private deities, but we grew up with one another and above all else we watched each other's backs.  
  
Soon we'll be pressured to fight again, and I can tell you straight-up that when the guns are aimed at us we'll come together again. That training will take us over and we will do what we have to.  
  
We were trained to survive. We will survive."  
  
The silence following her pronouncement was deafening in its depth. Slowly, our eyes met and we stared deeply at each other; and began at last, helplessly to laugh.  
  
Still shaking with mirth, I said the first thing that came to mind. "Wow, do you think I could use that as a pep-speech?"  
  
"Really? You like it? Cause personally I thought that it was a bit soap- boxy, a little preachy."  
  
"Well, rallying cries do have to be a little sanctimonious, don't they?"  
  
"Come on Max, let's go see if Mole needs any help with those troop deployments."  
  
We'd made it half-way across the field, when we heard the first warning cries. "Incoming on the east." ############################################################  
  
If the mutants could see us now, they would be quaking like the frightened animals they are.  
  
Surrounding me, spread in every direction stood a battalion of two thousand of our finest brothers and sisters.  
  
"Sir, the vehicles are prepared for full deployment at your command, just say go."  
  
I sneer at him spitefully and flick my chin sharply. A deep sense of inner peace fills me, a sense that not even that idiot Otto could diminish.  
  
As was foretold by our most powerful seer, we would deploy with the rising of the sun. Soon my forces would crush the pitiful flock in its little nest. Then on the eve of my triumph I would dispose of one snake in my bed, while releasing a plague of venom on the world.  
  
Speak of the devil and she shall appear. To give her, her due she was a gorgeous sight. A tight black sheath of clinging pants and midriff tank adorned her hour-glass figure, and set off the dusk of her skin. She slunk towards me like a panther, shaking her dark curls over her shoulder.  
  
She reached one slender hand towards me and dropped her tiny bundle into my hands. A small giggle bubbled from her lips. "One pill makes you bigger, the other makes you small. And some pills when they hit you make you feel nothing at all."  
  
I looked doubtfully at the tiny projectile resting on my palm.  
  
"Really Ames, after all of these years you should now that something doesn't have to be large to be deadly. Just remember what you have to do. When he's distracted." 


	17. The Mighty Fall

_Mwahahaha_.___  Round and round they go, where they stop nobody knows.  Will White kill Alec?   Will Alec kill White?  Will Lela kill both of them?  Will Max liven up her wardrobe with some spring colors?  Read on and find out.  Just remember, it might be an illusion, or it might be real (in the figurative way).  They can do anything with mirrors and smoke.  Don't worry, be happy._

#########################################################

Blood flows copiously from the slash across my forearm.  The pain is nothing to me, not with this much adrenaline in my system.  Unfortunately the liquid makes my hands slick and I fear losing my grip on the nine-millimeter which has become my lifeline.

I really hated guns two weeks ago, and I still hated them yesterday.  Now I'm beginning to feel like Mole, this chunk of metal is not only a necessary evil, but a dear friend.  A smirk of triumph passes my pale lips, most of the others on the battlefield have lost their piece or run out of munitions, but not me.

Fear fills me and the smirk disappears.  Am I becoming a monster?  The predators of my lineage burn my blood like poison. I crawl behind an upturned dumpster for shelter and collect my thoughts.  

The battle has only been going on for ten hours and already I've begun reverting to my baser instincts.  I'd killed or incapacitated twenty-six familiars since sunrise, now the sun must be somewhere overhead, though the downpour of constant rain shields it.

One hand snakes out involuntarily and smushes a damp, lank lock of hair behind my ear, smearing blood and dirt across my cheek.  Peering out from behind my safehaven I take stock of our situation.

Kate had been right, when faced with a peril to their family, my people had pulled together.  Neither side gained any ground, matching each other casualty for casualty.  Most injuries were non-fatal, not only had most of us gained a sense of morals since our escape, but both of our species were damned difficult to kill.

During the first three hours, 494 had clung to my side, protecting me, but eventually the rip-tide of battle had separated us.  I could feel the flow of blood from my arm begin to slow and I knew that it was time to re-enter the fray.

Damn-it, the mixture of muck and gore soaked everyone like paint, and it was becoming too difficult to distinguish friend from foe.  Biggs.  I caught sight of Biggs across the field, fighting a losing battle against two large women.

By indiscriminately shoving people out of my way, I managed to reach his side before one of the super-chics managed to plant their knife in his side.  Foot flailing out, I managed to catch one of his attackers in the head.  I was about to smash an uppercut into the other woman's nose, when a scream rang out freezing all of the action around us.

"NO!  You're dead.  We all saw you die."  White stood in the center of the battlefield like a nightmare incarnation.  Pointing his gun at CeCe, he motioned the cringing man behind him to step forward.

Otto cleared his throat nervously.  "If, hm, if 494 will come forward, Commander White will finish the fight between them.  If he doesn't come, then this woman dies.

CeCe's eyes only widen a bit, the rest of her body remains immobile.  Fear for her life fills me, 494's only real loyalty was to me, and he mightn't sacrifice himself for another person.

White's finger tightens on the trigger.  The wild quality in his eyes tells me that this has gone beyond duty and into personal revenge.

"I'm here."  494 slides calmly through the parting masses.  He slips for a moment in the thick mud, his hands burying to the wrists in the ground, before righting himself and coming to stand before Otto.

"Commander White asks if you will fight him fairly, without weapons."

This is a trap, the knowledge crawls through the back of my head; but I can see 494 weighing the advantages of fighting hand to hand with a weaker opponent.

"I agree."

Otto chucks a thumb at CeCe.  "She will check the commander for weapons, while I check you."  After a thorough padding down both CeCe and Otto nod, and with a look of extreme reluctance the men hand over their guns.

As soon as Otto is clear, White flies through the air in a full body tackle.  494 drops to the ground and curls his legs in, flipping White over his head.  Both men flip to their feet and circle one another, searching fan an opening.

In a blur of motion, 494 rolls forward and sweeps White's legs out from under him, pinning him to the ground.  He manages to get in four nasty looking punches to the face and stomach before White scissors his legs back and knocks him off.  

White puffs air as he rises, from his posture it looked like 494's last hit had broken a few of his ribs.  Most of the combatants had stopped to watch the fight, standing in an impenetrable circle around their two best warriors.  By our mutual codes of honor, neither side will help either man until one of them lies dead.

Flurries of punches and kicks are thrown and blocked, but the men are too evenly matched in strength.  White is beginning to slow, if 494 can just hold out for a few more minutes he might have a chance.

The fight has degraded into a puppy-dog tussle, as both men try to get a hold on the other.  

As one body they fall to the ground.

White chuckles soundlessly and rises shakily to his feet.

He wasn't moving, why the hell wasn't he moving?

My panicked eyes fluttered over him, but I couldn't see any injuries large enough to slow him.

Stumbling over to the body of a fallen familiar, White padded him down and pulled a gun from the man's pocket.  His lips shaped soundless words.

"You thought you were so smart didn't you, you didn't see that one coming though."

As though it were a great struggle for him, 494 pulled himself forward to rest on his knees.  Finally, I spotted the dart, embedded just above his left hip.  I had to admit that poison seemed a little too subtle to be White's style.

494's movements seemed to startle White, his eyes narrowed and he glanced wildly through the crowd.  White must have been frightened, without wasting the usual amount of time gloating, he raised his gun.

Adrenalin pumped through my system.  I had to do something, but my hands were tied.

Three shots rang out, cutting the dank silence like a knife.

494 jerked onto his back, his body sinking slowly into the mud.

Stepping forward, White knelt before him and raised his gun again.

"See, all of you, no matter what step you take.  No matter how good you think you are.  We are better, better soldiers with pure blood, and all you will ever be is a bunch of…"  His words choked off there and he clapped his hand to his back.  An expression of consternation passed his face, and then in a sudden movement 494 rose up and wrapped his arms around White.

One second, then two; the men embraced, then both slid weakly to the ground in opposite directions, White's stomach slit from hip to hip.

Realization was slow.  Otto had called 494 out to save CeCe's life.  He had slipped in the mud while walking down the hill, an impossibly clumsy maneuver for a super-soldier.  For a few moments his hands had been buried in the mire.  He had taken that opportunity to submerge his pocket knife in the sodden ground.

Otto cleared his throat, "It seems that neither side will win today.  As leader by default I offer a temporary truce, on the condition that we are allowed to remove our wounded."

I nod once before turning away, there is nothing to gain by refusing and everything to lose.  Without hope I drop to the ground and take his wrist.

Against all odds, a tiny rhythm flutters beneath my fingers.


	18. Finding the Courage

**Note**:  If you thought the switching perspectives were wild before, oh just wait and read this chapter.  Don't worry, I'll try to make it as clear as possible.  Max's POV will be in plain type, Alec's will be in Italics (now that my computer is behaving enough to use them).  This chapter is going to be super angsty, but I promise a happy ending at the last second so don't curse my name, or worse yet give up on me. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, it's against my principles of anarchy.

Think, I have to think right now, but it is so hard.  The blood is everywhere, his blood is everywhere.  I have to think, remember what I'm supposed to do.

I tear off his shirt and press it against the oozing bullet holes.  Oozing, that's good I think, it means that none of his main veins or arteries were severed.  White's aim must have been off, two of the shots had furrowed along Alec's sides.  Only one of the wounds looks life threatening, it pierces his upper torso, and might have punctured his heart or lungs.

**_###_**_Thepain is so intense, I can hardly breathe.  There is too much of it to handle and I fear drowning in the hurt.###_

Ages pass as I press down on the whole in his chest.  Finally CeCe lifts me off the ground, as a handful of medics lift him onto a stretcher.  She and Biggs take me by the hands and guide me up to the infirmary.  They hold me tight, prevent me from tripping over the bodies.

###_The numbness is overtaking me.  Colors swirl over my head, interrupting the grey; they speak to me like old friends.  Rachel, and Joshua, Cindy and Sketchy, Biggs and CeCe, but not the one voice that I strain to hear. My ears prick, the words slower now, so that I can here them speaking to me.###_

I've sat watching him sleep for three hours.  I haven't left his side since he returned from surgery.  No movement marks my vigil, he hasn't so much as twitched.  He's asleep.  My brain shies from the word coma, it can't handle the implications of the words.

His hands are icy in mine, if I can keep holding them I might make them warm, and he might come back.  Kate's footsteps blend seamlessly into the beeping of the monitors.

"Will he be okay?"

"It's going to be close Max, he's lost a lot of blood and we don't have enough to transfuse him with."  I hold my arm out wordlessly.  She just nods in acceptance and begins fussing with tubing.

"Kate?"  To my surprise, my tone sounds normal, almost conversational.  "I don't think that I could take it if he didn't come back.  I think that there is something there, something between us.  I spent so long pushing him away, out of fear, and now I may never have the chance to show him."

Soft laughter escapes her lips, and I glance up indignantly.  "Here I am spilling my guts to you, laying bare my emotional soul, and you're laughing at me?"

"Well, it's just, everyone knows that."  

I splutter, dumbfounded.  "What?"

"That you're crazy for each other.  Come on, the longing looks he's always giving you.  The way you're constantly hitting and touching him.  You both have a ridiculous amount of sexual tension going on.  Don't tell me that you've never noticed."

Hundreds of memories shot through my brain.  Alec patching up my wounds and sticking by my side during the Eyes Only missions that he had so reluctantly agreed to take part in.  Every stupid argument we had ever had.  The way that he always let me win in fights; even though he had, had the advantage in strength and training.  The way he had looked at me when he'd said goodbye, right before the twelve.  

Both during the hostage crisis and then the bar-fight, the look in his eyes, the one that had taken my breath away, it had been love.  I had seen the love in his eyes and felt it reflected in my own; but I had been far too stubborn to recognize it for what is was.  Now my stubbornness might have cost us our chance to be together, now I stood to lose not only his love, but his life.

###_He was the last voice to visit me.  "I failed us."_

_"If she is still alive, then you have nothing to be ashamed of brother."_

_"Our body is damaged, very badly."_

_"No.  I don't accept that.  I can't die.  I need to see her again.  I need to tell her how I feel about her."_

_"Listen to me then.  If you have even a chance of going back, then you must be willing to take a great risk."###_

Blood loss started to take its toll, my head drooped softly until it came to rest on the bed, at his side.  As my eyes shut drowsily, the great expanse of grey from my earlier dream of Alec, reappeared.  

Swathes of grey mist swirled around my legs, shrouding the vast space in darkness.  I wasn't sure why my dreams had brought me here again, but the urge to find Alec and to see him again was overwhelming.  "Alec, Alec!"  My screams were profanely loud in the dimness of my surroundings.  Alarm filled me, without knowing why, it seemed a matter of life and death to find him.

"Alec!"

###_494's words dropped on me like stones.  What he asked seemed impossible, and yet how could I not trust someone who was really an extension of myself.  I swallowed convulsively.  Somehow, I would trust him.  Anything to find my way back to her._

_"Alec!"  Her voice ripped through the mistiness of the grey with profane loudness.  Apparently 494 was right when he said that she would find me.  Now I was faced with the more difficult task of passing on 494's words to her.#_##

"Max!"

"Alec?  Where are you, I can't see you through all of this crap?"

"Maxie, it doesn't matter where I am, you have to listen to me.  You don't have long here.  Pretty soon your body will be waking up, and then you'll have to go.  494 told me what I had to say."

"Alec?  What are you talking about, where are you?"

"Look, this is very important.  I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen.  All I know is that you'll be faced with some kind of decision, and if you do the right thing then I might be able to come back."

"Please.  I'll do anything, whatever you need.  Just tell me what to do."

"Listen Maxie, you're about to leave so just listen.  Whatever happens, you must remember that in order to die, we must live, and in order that we might live, we must all die."

###_As I passed on 494's message I felt her presence begin to fade.  Silently, I prayed that she had heard my last words and that she would make the right decision.  The pain was slowly slipping away from my body, and realization dawned on me.  I knew now, what she would have to do.  If only she would have the strength to do it.###_

"Max, can you here me?"  Kate's voice cut through the last shreds of unconsciousness, effectively separating me from the dream.  I looked with confusion at my arm, now bare of needle and tubing; I knew that I hadn't given anywhere near the amount of blood that I was capable of donating.  "Max, I don't know how to say this."  Dread and understanding fill me at once.

"Judging from this MRI, he's barricaded himself in his subconscious.  We knew that this might inevitably happen.  Manticore's scientists found that this was a danger of the twelve.  As a necessary part of the training, the subject is trained to remove themselves from pain so that they may become more capable fighters.  Unfortunately, when the damage is as great as this the subjects could not cut themselves off from the pain.  Because the subject is bound by the principles of their training, they will continue to attempt to subjugate the pain even when there is too much to handle.  They will struggle against the feelings, until their own consciousness becomes buried with the pain."

Bile filled my mouth.  The implications of her words settling over me.  "What does this mean for Alec?"

"Without a mind to control the body, the body must rely on autonomic functions for its survival.  Due to the amount of damage to his heart, his body is going into shock.  Perhaps with the proper equipment, I could give him more time to recover.  There isn't much I can do for him, with what we have."

"That's it?"

"Basically, as the person who was," she cleared her throat softly, "who is, closest to him, you have a decision to make.  His cardiac rhythms are breaking down.  I can defibrillate him; but I have to warn you that he would be stuck like this.  There isn't any chance that he'll recover from this state; so he would only be living for a time until his nervous system shuts down, or…"

"Or you could just let his heart stop, let him stop."  Tears sting the corner of my eyes.  I would give anything that I had to trade places with him.  Fear fills me, for his life, and rage, for the man who did this to him; but beyond that I am filled with understanding.  In order to die, we must live, and in order that we might live, we must all die.  His words echoed threw my head, spoken in the beloved tones that I might never hear again.  I had to let him go.  I had to trust to my instincts, that I would look into those hazel eyes and see Alec staring back at me from them again.

Filling with the resolve which has been missing from my actions for so long, I look Kate in the eyes.  "Let him go.  He deserves dignity."

She looks into my eyes with surprise.  "In order to live, we have to die.  Besides Kate, anything is possible."  Confusion bathes her face, but she wisely accepts my words.

###_Floating on bliss.  The pain is gone, replaced by a light sensation of floating.  "Alec, don't give into the feeling.  That is the mistake which the others made.  Pain is necessary to life, embrace it.  Remember who and what you are fighting for."  494's voice wakes me from my dreamy state.  Focus, to lose my focus could be deadly.  Through my tenuous hold on my body, I feel my heart begin to weaken.###_

The beeping of the monitors becomes frantic and irregular.  Tears run unheeded down my cheeks.  Kate's hand moves to unplug the machines, but I shake my head haltingly.  Within me is the bravery to see this to the end.

###_Shudders pass through me, chilling me.  The omnipresent surface of the Grey begins to fade to black.  Black fades to white, white to brown, brown to a brilliant rainbow, to violet and indigo.  Colors shift flawlessly from one to the next, through every color in the crayon box.  Finally, I am surrounded by the red of blood.  My heart is pierced, and the blood runs free and clean and pure.###_

High pitched whistling floods the room like the screeching of an avenging banshee.  My eyes stare straight ahead, anchored on his unmoving face.  The whine stops suddenly, as Kate pulls the plug from the wall.  My hands clutch one of his cold ones, and the seconds pass by like hours.

###_Pure, radiant light, beyond a color, fills the space.  "The way before you is one filled with pain, and sadness my brother."  494's voice is no longer flat and harsh, but calm and gentle._

_"You know what my decision is."_

_"Then I will take your place in the Grey."  He reaches out his hand and takes my own identical one.  Pulling gently on my arm, he reverses our positions.  "I expect you to take care of her in my stead."_

_"Always."_###

The door slides shut as Kate leaves me alone to say goodbye.  Tears flow freely, drenching his shirt.  I squeeze them shut to stem the flow; only to start in shock as a broad, calloused thumb traces a line along my cheekbone and brushes away a single tear.

*Epilogue to follow.


	19. Waking to Love

_Last time on Dark Angel:_

###_Pure, radiant light, beyond a color, fills the space.  "The way before you is one filled with pain, and sadness my brother."  494's voice is no longer flat and harsh, but calm and gentle._

_"You know what my decision is."_

_"Then I will take your place in the Grey."  He reaches out his hand and takes my own identical one.  Pulling gently on my arm, he reverses our positions.  "I expect you to take care of her in my stead."_

_"Always."_###

The door slides shut as Kate leaves me alone to say goodbye.  Tears flow freely, drenching his shirt.  I squeeze them shut to stem the flow; only to start in shock as a broad, calloused thumb traces a line along my cheekbone and brushes away a single tear.

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"You're hurt Maxie."  Holding my breath, I squeeze the chilly hand which remains in mine.  My heart bursts as his fingers gently squeeze mine in return.

"Is this real?"  I still can't bring myself to open my eyes.

"Anything can be real if you want it enough."

"God Alec, you're so full of shit."  His laughter stirs my hair, and I feel myself laughing hysterically in return.

"I sacrifice myself for the love of this amazing girl.  I protect her with my life, and endure endless amounts of pain for her.  I crawl my way back from the dead just to see her again, and what do I get?  Verbal abuse.  Some things just never change."  Warmth fills my chest, burning out the last patches of cold.

"What did you say?"

"About the verbal abuse?  Well, even you have to admit Maxie, that you do tend to get carried away with the cursing and hitting."

"Not that you idiot.  The part before that, about the love."

"Oh, that.  Well, I've had plenty of time to think, and wonder, and worry; and I need to tell you something before we have another emergency."  He took my hands weakly, and pressed them to his lips.  The heat was so intense, that my body felt as though it were melting, and to think of it, it might be.

"You are the most important thing to me in this whole world Maxie.  I could handle the grey, and the loneliness; but not the thought that I would never see you again.  The truth is, I love you Maxie.  More than life."

Tears welled up in my eyes again, and I grimaced at my own girlish behavior.

"Oh god, I shouldn't have said anything.  Are you going to kick my ass?  Because I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be up to any rounds of kickboxing with you for at least another three days."

"Shut-up Alec, just do me a favor and shut-up," and with that I dipped my head down, and my lips closed crushingly against his.  My eyes sought his, so full of life once again, and gazed questioningly into them.  In reply, his long fingers twined through my hair and he drew my lips gently to his.

The feelings coursing through my body went past fire, and into blazing inferno.  Tiny electric shudders passed through his lips and coursed through my veins.  My hands brushed against his chest, and he let out a half pained, half exasperated gasp.  With a start, I remembered how close he had just come to dying.

A loud shriek from the now open doorway brought both of our heads reeling upwards.  Again, I'd forgotten Kate's aptitude for volume.

"Well, Kate isn't it?  Nice to meet you in the flesh at last.  As you can see, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

"How?  Who?"  Kate gave up on coherent sentences and made small grunts of consternation and disbelief; finally, remembering her capacity as doctor she walked over to the bed and began plugging machines back into the wall.  The slow, steady bleeping of his pulse reassured me that Alec was real, and not another wishful dream.  The three of us stared at one another in uncertainty.

At last regaining control of her formidable tongue, Kate was the first to break the silence.  "So, answers as to the sudden miracle that seems to have happened while I was out of the room?"  A shadow passes over Alec's face, and I squeeze his hand.  Gathering his thoughts, he clears his throat and begins the tale.

"As near as I can tell, this is how the twelve works.  A normal person's personality is divided into an ego, id, and superego.  Manticore went beyond genetic manipulation when creating their soldiers; a portion of the training which we went through was also designed to alter our mental states.  They strengthened the superego by teaching us to subvert our inner desires, our id.  While this mental suppression made us better soldiers, it also created a tendency towards a kind of schizophrenia.  Our personalities were split into a soldier made of animal instinct and military training, and a human component with a tendency towards indulging our desires.  The different levels of katta, and especially the twelve were created to further subvert our human sides.  The difficulty of the twelve is that it allows the soldier to takeover the personality completely.  In order for the soldier to take complete control, the human component needs to go somewhere."  His voice caught slightly and I wrapped my arms around his chest, supporting him.

"I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but my subconscious created this kind of grey, mental prison.  In time, I was capable of changing things, like you would do when you take control of a dream."  He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand.  "See the soldier cuts himself off from feeling pain by subjugating it to the same place as his humanity.  So the pain, it infects the subconscious.  With nothing to distract yourself, it becomes unbearable; but eventually I learned how to focus it.  By concentrating on the pain, I could make it into a tangible object, and it could be locked away.  

I returned to my body once while I was in the grey.  Before the switch happened, I was in incredible pain.  There was too much of it to focus, and so eventually I allowed myself to let go and feel.  As near as I can tell, the key to returning to control of my body was the pain.  As soldiers we were trained to ignore pain, to repress it so that it couldn't distract us from our duty.  494 was trying so hard to repress the pain, that he began to regress into our subconscious.  When I died, we were both temporarily contained in the grey and I was able to return to control."

"So that's it?  I can't believe that Manticore overlooked something so obvious.  If they would have just considered killing their soldiers, they would have solved the problem ages ago."  Both Alec and Kate just stare at me.

"Is she always like this?"

"Believe me Kate, you have no idea."  Alec gazed at me fondly, and Kate took the hint.

"Well I'll just leave you two crazy kids to torture each other.  I am trusting you Max, to make sure that this guy stays put and doesn't test this miracle back from the dead act.  In the meantime, it seems like I've got some good news to spread around to the troops."

As soon as the door banged shut, he pulled me gently back into the circle of his arms.  "You know that this is a long way from being over.  Knowing your luck Maxie, someone else will be trying to kill you by the end of the week."

"My luck?  Okay mister walking bullseye, how many times have you been shot and otherwise damaged in the past few weeks?"

"Your attitude wounds me Maxie, hits me right here."  He points guillessly to his chest, and an ache hits me as I realize that he really had taken a bullet to the heart for me.  Tears silently fill my eyes.

"Hey there, look I'm fine see?"  He buried his face in my hair and rocked me back and forth in the cradle of his arms.  "I promise that whatever bad stuff come next, I'll be right there beside you being a constant pain in your ass."

My breathy laughter musses his hair.  "Promise?"

"Always."

**End Part One**

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Well I hope that you enjoyed my first attempt at fan fiction, it was certainly an adventure for me.  I'd like to give big thanks to the following people for their great reviews: Panda007, Megan, Sorrow Reminisce, Black Rose, Peggy, Deb, Willow453, RPGirl17, Drey, Zol, 4J5A2, lynn, lakergirl, em, Emerald, scarlet, Nevermore, Shy-shadow Reckless, Alec's little 3, MM, Lauren, fichic, constar494, and Lorelei (Merci Beaucoup).  If anyone is interested I've left plenty of wiggle room for a sequel or two.  Tell me what y'all think.  

                                                                                        Thanks- SilverRain


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